


Intended

by et_velata



Category: Cardcaptor Sakura
Genre: !Human Kero, !Human Spinel Sun, !Human sprites, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, BDSM Scene, Master/Slave, Multi, Public Sex, different ages, moved over from my primary account, otp, polyamory realities, polycule, quoting canon, seriously: being new to poly can be immensely shitty, the kinky love kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 45,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/et_velata/pseuds/et_velata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Mob boss Clow Reed has chosen which of his descendants will inherit his fortune and power. Twisted as he is, he sends his enforcers Kerberos “the Beast” and Yue “the Judge” to insinuate themselves, spy on Sakura Kinomoto, and determine if she is worthy. If she passes Clow's tests, she will get all of Clow's holdings, legal and sub rosa, plus Kerberos and Yue.</p><p>Yue, Clow's collared lover, wishes it could be otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road to Hell is Paved

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm sorry I lost all your lovely comments and kudos when I moved this story over. ~Cris)

“Today,” said Clow, “I retire.”

In the oversized, red armchair, he looked as regal as a benevolent, young king. In truth, his years exceeded his apparent age. In his many years as the most powerful man in a certain shadowy level of the business world, he changed many lives, issuing edicts from that plush leather throne. Certainly, he had changed the lives of the two strong men that stood before him with faces showing disbelief and concern. The Weishi brothers had been nothing before Clow Reed had brought them up from the streets and made them into his most trusted subordinates. He had made them.

“What do you mean?” Yue “the Judge” Weishi asked. His customary hauteur faltered. The younger of the two bodyguards, a pale-eyed man with silvery blonde hair he wore long, and an exceptionally well-made physique, Yue looked splendid at Clow’s side. He was something more than Clow Reed’s strong arm. Yue was Clow’s lover.

Clow slid his eyes over Yue’s face, avoiding eye contact without seeming to do so. “Exactly what I said, Yue. I am retiring.”

The elder brother, Kerberos “the Beast” Weishi, laughed in disbelief at his boss’s words. “That’s not funny. You have a twisted sense of humor, Clow,” he said.

“Sorry if it seems that way, Kerberos, but this isn’t a joke,” Clow answered.

Yue reacted more intensely to the news, which Clow hadn’t even hinted in their pillow talk. “But – why?” The tension in his voice snapped the words like an accusation. His pale skin did not flush, but his eyes gleamed with poorly restrained emotion.

Clow smiled at Yue’s distress. Had they been alone, it would have been foreplay. The beautiful man was a fighter. Cold and aloof in public, in their bedroom he had the cold fire of a diamond. It made Yue all the more thrilling to dominate, particularly with the satisfaction of knowing that Yue fought what he wanted most.

“It is my time,” Clow said. He didn’t need to explain himself. However, Yue and Kerberos were more than bodyguards, more than enforcers. With none of Clow’s close relatives still living, the young men were his family. He trusted them far above anyone else in the organization.

“You’re serious?” Kerberos had a frame like a lion, broad shoulders and wide hands, but his voice was a mild tenor, only a few notes deeper than his brother’s. They were both still young in ways and appearance, though they had both been part of Clow’s inner circle before even Kerberos was of age to buy alcohol. Keroberos continued, “I mean, you’ve been the boss for a long time, but your power hasn’t weakened at all.”

Clow considered his territories. To most of the world, the name Clow Reed meant only a name glimpsed in a newspaper’s page, mentioned for the humanitarian aid funded by his corporation. To the upright business world, he was a top player. To the world of real business, where respect meant more than money, Clow was a sorcerer of the deal, a king with vassals in every branch of government and industry.

He was tired of it. There was such a thing as too much power.

“True,” he said to Kerberos. “But all things come to an end. In this world of ours, a man of my position rarely gets to choose his time. I choose… to choose. Therefore, I must prepare.”

Kerberos was a man of action. He closed his fists and pressed them against each other, shoulders flexing. “Prepare for what?” he asked. He was ready for the order.

Clow watched Yue sidelong. “For the person who will care for you after I’m gone,” he said.

Yue’s eyes flashed and his rigid stance betrayed his refusal. Kerberos stared at Clow. “Take care of us? We take care of you. Unless you mean –” He stopped speaking. His eyes grew wider and a rictus of a grin bared his teeth. “You’re not going to let us get iced, right Boss?”

“Of course not,” Yue hissed at his brother. “It’s worse than that.”

Kerberos raised an eyebrow at his sibling. “Worse than the ‘big sleep’? We’ll be targets once Clow leaves the business. You’ll leave a big hole when you’re gone, Clow.”

“I have no intention of leaving you at loose ends,” Clow intoned with full authority. “I have, for some time, had my eye on a candidate to inherit. You two,” he indicated both young men before him, “will decide if I’ve chosen well. You’re going to get close to her.”

“See if she has the right stuff,” Kerberos said, nodding. Yue crossed his arms over his chest and kept his eyes averted.

Yue asked, in a soft, dangerous voice, “Who is she?”

“Right,” said Kerberos, “because if you’re thinking of a lady, you’ve gotta mean Daidouji Corporation.” He stopped and looked between Yue and Clow. “Not Daidouji. You can’t be selling to Daidouji.”

“Not Sonomi Daidouji,” Clow assured. “But funny you should mention her.” He leaned back in his chair. “The candidate is Sakura Kinomoto, age nineteen, second child of Fujitaka Kinomoto and Nadeshiko Amamiya.” He paused to see if the brothers recognized the important name. “History before your time,” he concluded. “Sonomi Daidouji and Nadeshiko Amamiya were cousins, but Nadeshiko was disowned by her family for marrying Kinomoto. After Nadeshiko’s murder, there was no contact between families. Until recently. It seems that Sakura has begun to mend the rift.”

“You’ve selected the second born. What about the older child?” Yue asked.

“The Amamiyas don’t want anything to do with Kinomoto’s first born. Touya is nearly irrelevant.” Clow steered the topic back. “You will take false identities,” he instructed. “Yue, you will begin this evening. Kerberos, your place as a member of the Kinomoto household will take a few more days to confirm. Your alter ego will be starting on ground floor, but take the first opportunity to move upstairs. Windy is in place to help you with that.”

“I’m on it.”

“I’m counting on you.” Clow smiled his closed-lipped smile.

Kerberos responded with a lopsided grin. He bowed and proceeded to leave the room. Without comment, Yue echoed the bow and began to follow Kerberos out.

“Wait a moment, Yue.” Clow beckoned.

Yue finished a step and stopped. He turned his head to look at Clow. The door clicked closed behind Kerberos.

Clow beckoned again. He leaned forward in the chair, and the silk of his coat whispered over the polished silk of his slacks. Wisps of his hair escaped the loosely tied ponytail.

Yue crossed the floor and went to his knees in quick motion. “Clow,” he whispered. He looked up at Clow.

“You’ll live, Yue,” said Clow.

“I don’t understand why this is happening.” Alone with Clow, Yue let his emotional upheaval show. “I don’t have to stay in the business. I’ll go with you, wherever you go.”

“I can’t keep you in my employ.”

Yue squeezed his eyes closed. “You don’t have pay me, Clow. Once we approve the girl, if you still want to leave the business, Kerberos can stay with her, and I’ll go with you.”

A chuckle rose out of Clow. “You haven’t even met your new mistress, and you’re already disobeying your master’s wish.”

“I don’t want a new master!” Yue insisted. “What are you saying, Clow? You want me to bed a nineteen year old girl? You want me to trade you for her as a lover?” He looked away to the windows and scene of snow falling beyond them.

Clow reached to run his fingers through Yue’s hair. Yue flinched when his fingers touched, but then Yue melted under the caress. “You can’t stay with me. There’s no need to rush it, but you’ll see, you need a master. You’ll be drawn to her strength and power. Let it develop naturally. Go into the relationship knowing I intended you for her, but don’t feel you have to force it.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

Clow ran a fingertip along Yue’s jaw, but Yue would not turn his face back to Clow. “Look at me,” Clow commanded.

Yue responded to the hardness in the command, obediently raising his eyes to Clow. His eyes glistened, but the tears stayed behind his long eyelashes. Clow swept Yue’s long bangs aside. He leaned in and Yue closed his eyes a moment before Clow kissed them at the corners.

Clow moved his tear-salted lips to Yue’s mouth and was welcomed. He kissed Yue deeply, lingeringly. His fingers still wound Yue’s hair, and he pulled hard on the smooth tresses while he kissed Yue, so that he could hear and feel the moan of desire that rose up from Yue’s center.

Tugging on Yue’s hair, Clow guided Yue up into the armchair. Yue whimpered. He straddled Clow’s lap. “I love you,” he gasped with breath already coming fast and shallow. Yue’s fingers went to the silver buttons on Clow’s sapphire blue shirt.

“Then obey me,” Clow murmured into Yue’s neck. He opened the collar of Yue’s shirt and fingered the chain holding the pendant he had given to Yue. He ran his teeth along Yue’s collarbone. “While you wear this,” he said, dragging the weight of the blue gem along Yue’s chest, “you are mine, even when I give you to another.”

“Master,” Yue said, “I can take any way you hurt me but this way.”

“You can take this, too,” Clow said. He grabbed Yue by the wrists. “Tonight,” he said, “you will meet Sakura while she is with friends at a skating party. Be charming. Be carefree.”

“Pretend to be something I never have been,” Yue said.

“I have seen you play a room,” Clow replied. “I caught you grifting, you remember.”

“I remember,” Yue said. “You made me take a bath. With you.”

“The first time was an invitation,” Clow corrected. “The second time, you wore my gift.” He let the chain fall back against Yue’s skin. His hands slid downward. He bit harder on Yue’s shoulder, hard enough to cause Yue to release a cry.

“I’m going to mark you,” Clow continued, his voice pouring over Yue like warm oil. “By the time the marks fade, I want you to be indispensable to Sakura.” He made Yue stand up. He walked him over to the rug by the fireplace, and there Yue slowly undressed.

“And what will happen if I am not?” Yue asked in a voice almost too quiet to hear.

“Then,” Clow warned as he slid off his suit coat, “there will be hell to pay.”

☙


	2. Intentionally

Yue noticed the flock of severe women in dark suits and dark glasses, but except for the Daidouji Corp. security detail, the skating rink was a shockingly low-security venue. No one even gave him a first glance, let alone a second one. He looked ordinary: a college student dressed in pressed slacks and a polo shirt, clean tennis shoes and hair freshly cut in a conservative style. Round-frame glasses gave his eyes a wide, innocent look.

He walked toward the cafe counter conveying clear intent on the cafe as his target. Without making it apparent that he was surveying the patrons on the ice rink, he arranged his path to pass close to the group that included Sakura Kinomoto. The dark-haired young woman tracking Sakura with a smartphone, recording video, was Tomoyo Daidouji, Sonomi’s only child and Sakura’s best friend. The impact of that alliance on the business underworld could be historic.

Sakura’s group consisted primarily of young women in the same age range, with only one similarly aged young man who seemed to be linked to the round-faced girl with large curls. If there were other boyfriends, they were not in attendance. If any of the girls were paired, they weren’t showing their relationship in evident ways. Though a boyfriend or girlfriend would have made conquest more difficult, an established romantic relationship would not change Yue’s mission.

He couldn’t think of himself as Yue as he made his way toward the cafe, not with persona he would be using to get close to Sakura. He had left Yue behind with the fading warm of Clow’s aftercare. His long hair and his tailored wardrobe were gone. Yue was hidden inside the new persona, just as the bruises and welts on his body were hidden under his middle-class clothes. Just like those marks, it was temporary, but real for now.

His expression displayed enthusiasm and hope, shaded with need. Yukito Tsukishiro needed this job. He didn’t want to be a burden on his grandparents. At the same time, he couldn’t take more serious employment without negatively affecting his studies.

The high school girl at the cash register leaned against the counter, twirling her brown hair and broadcasting boredom. The other person was a man of the same age as Yue, mid-twenties and older than typical for the type of job. Yukito presented as twenty, and even he would be over the usual age for the work. When the girl made no special effort to greet Yukito, the man stepped out from the kitchen space and grumbled, “Welcome to Snow Queen. How may I serve you today?” in a monotone. He glanced at his coworker with eyes narrowed, then turned his attention back to Yukito.

“Hi. How are you today?” Yukito asked, as if he had been sincerely welcomed.

“Fine,” the man answered, his dark eyes now measuring Yukito with caution. “Would you like a minute before you decide?” He pointed toward the lighted menu above the counter. “The weekend special is Gorgeous Georgia Peach.” He said the ridiculous, difficult name without a hint of humor.

“That sounds great,” Yukito responded. “I’ll take a small one, please.” He reconsidered. “Sorry. Could you make that a large, instead?” He could use the larger sized dessert drink as a reason to loiter longer.

The man barked, “Akizuki! You’re up,” at the bored girl as he stepped over to the slushy machine to serve Yukito’s order.

“Aye, aye, sir!” the girl shot back as she jumped to mock attention and saluted. “Right away, Captain Touya!” Her brash laugh must have grated on the man -- Touya -- because he shot her a look like daggers.

“Just do your job, Nakuru.” Touya slammed an empty tray down beside the register, but the girl didn't twitch.

Nakuru turned to Yukito with a saccharine smile. She took the coin he carefully counted out. Then she went back to leaning on the counter, this time watching Touya’s every move.

“Excuse me,” Yukito asked. “Would the manager happen to be around?”

Nakuru shot up straight. “Why, are you going to complain about something?” she threatened.

“No, no,” Yukito replied with a self-effacing laugh. “I was hoping you were hiring? Could I get an application?”

“You want to work here?” Nakuru made a sour face. She stuck out a finger and pointed to the empty floor space in front of the counter. “You see the lines we get? There isn’t enough work for us two.” She pointed first at herself, then at Touya.

Touya snapped the lid onto the waxed paper cup. He placed the very tall cup onto the tray, along with a wrapped straw and a paper napkin. “There is when one of us is you,” he said under his breath.

“I brought my resume,” Yukito offered.

“Ooh. Gimme. I want a look.” Nakuru stuck her arm out with her hand open.

Yukito handed her the printed sheet. “I don’t have much experience. But I’m a hard worker and I learn quickly.” Touya caught his eye for a moment, and a minute spark of friendliness glimmered in his eyes.

“Hmm. Nothing, nothing,” Nakuru checked off, “and more nothing.” She smiled but her eyes were cruel. “You’re perfect for the job.”

“Just give him an application,” Touya said.

“Fine, whatever,” Nakuru said. She looked around. “Where do we keep them?”

With a sigh, Touya slid the tray toward Yukito. “Take a seat,” he instructed, “and I’ll bring one out to you. You need a pen?”

“That would be great. Thanks,” Yukito replied.

He took the tray and looked around for a table at which he wanted to sit. There was an available table directly next to the ice rink, at the spot where Tomoyo Daidouji stood with her camera. Yue chose a less obvious table positioned so that he would have to pass through other tables. When the young women decided to take a break, they would be likely to sit at one of the tables blocking his exit, which would make a credible excuse for interacting with Sakura Kinomoto.

Touya Kinomoto was his back-up plan. The taciturn older brother may have been irrelevant to Clow’s designs, but his convenient placement at the skating rink food stand was too opportune to ignore. They had an introduction, and that was all Yue ever needed. An introduction was all Julian had needed, back when her survived by more bravado than wisdom. 

 

* * *

 

Julian Star: that’s what he was calling himself tonight. Kero had gotten him into the club, but Julian had gotten himself into the private party, the place with the real action. He worked the room, worked the jaded high-rollers and sketchy nouveau riche, getting invitations for private consultations, knowing he would be noticed by the host. When he felt Clow Reed watching, Julian pocketed an expensive looking objet d’arte.

Then he wandered close to the doorway of a side room, making his path seem to be meandering toward the exit and his get away. He pretended not to see Reed making a direct line to him. He pretended to be startled by the touch of Clow’s hand on his back. Security made small gestures of aide to their boss, but he waved them off with a subtlety the guests would not notice.

“I see you’re a fan of antiquities,” Clow Reed murmured.

“Have we met?” Julian asked, silvery blue eyes sheened with innocence.

The man smiled: lips together, enigmatic. Behind his old-fashioned glasses, interest danced. “Clow,” he said.

“Julian.” He leaned away slightly, a pretense of attempted escape.

Clow blocked him. He guided him into the room beyond the closed door. The room was not unoccupied. In less than a minute, it emptied except for the host and his unintended guest. Clow closed the door behind them. Deliberately, he took a key from within a breast pocket and locked the door.

“That’s an interesting key. Does it only lock this door or does it work on all of them?” Julian asked, breathlessly, as if he were afraid. He was a little afraid; he’d be an idiot not to be. Clow Reed was not an overstuffed executive. Clow Reed was a dangerous man.

Julian strolled around the border of the room, waiting for a reply. When he came to an end table, he took the small crescent sculpture out of his pocket and set it on the surface. Without looking up at Clow, he asked, “What is it?”

“A scale model,” Clow answered. His voice had the peat and smoke nuances of quality scotch.

“For what?”

“It’s called the Moon Bell. The sound of its ringing signifies the defeat of an devastating force.”

“If I rang it now,” Julian asked, “would you be overcome?”

Clow moved toward him. He was tall; with a few easy strides, he stood behind Julian. He didn’t touch, but Julian could feel a radiance of body heat. Clow Reed was like a solar eclipse: his ebony black hair, his midnight black suit; heat, and no light.

“You could not invoke it,” Clow said. “It can only be rung by someone…” his fingers alighted on Julian’s hair, “pure.”

Careful of his steps, Julian turned around. He looked into Clow’s eyes and knew. Clow Reed was a very dangerous man, and Julian had his attention.

“No one steals from me, Julian.”

* * *

 

Touya, as good as his word, made his way to Yukito’s table with a sheet of paper in hand. He set it down on the plastic table and snapped a pen down on top. “Knock yourself out,” he said.

Yukito picked up the ball point pen. It had pink printing on the side that read, Tomoeda Nadeshiko Festival.

Touya slid into one of the other chairs. “I worked at the festival last May. They paid us in unclaimed prize winnings.” His eyes scanned the skating rink.

“I’ll give it back to you when I complete the application,” Yukito assured.

“Keep it. It’s yours,” said Touya. He leaned back in his chair. “Why would you want that job?” he asked.

“It’s a job,” Yukito replied, with a laugh and a shrug to lighten his answer. “How about you? You don’t seem too happy with it.”

Touya shrugged.

“How long have you worked for Snow Queen?” Yukito asked.

“Couple weeks,” Touya answered. Lower, so that Yukito nearly couldn’t hear him over the ambient noise, he added, “I don’t keep jobs too long.”

Yukito wanted to acknowledge the comment without pushing at Touya. “Oh.” He decided that Touya must be taking a break to get even with Nakuru’s laziness. He seemed in no hurry to get back to the cafe. He sat there, arms crossed, eyes scanning the room as if he was looking for someone to appear.

Yukito let him stay without comment. He put the drink straw to his mouth and took a mouthful of Gorgeous Georgia Peach. The icy drink tasted like a Fuzzy Navel, without the saving grace of alcohol to make it palatable. Yukito sipped the perfumey drink through the straw while filling out the employment application form. He would have to arrange for Nakuru Akizuki to be fired. She was right; there wasn’t enough work for two people, let alone three.

As anticipated, Sakura, Tomoyo, and their friends left the ice rink and crowded around a table one over from Yukito’s. Sakura noticed Yukito’s tablemate instantly. She separated from her group and came to stand beside her brother.

“Touya, what are you doing here? Are you working at Snow Queen now?” she asked. She glanced at Yukito, and when their eyes met, she quickly looked away, though she smiled. Her body language expressed shyness and interest.

Touya answered, “Nope. I quit.”

“Oh!” she answered. She reached up to tuck a lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “I guess that’s OK. You’ll get a better job.”

“Yuki here is taking my place,” he stated.

Yukito laughed in surprise. “Yuki?” The nickname was unexpected.

“Isn’t it Yuki?” Touya asked. He seemed genuine. “You have to have courage to want that job, after meeting Akizuki.”

“It’s Yukito,” he clarified, including Sakura in his response. “Like ‘snow,’ not ‘courage.’” He stood up. “Sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Yukito Tsukishiro,” he said to Sakura. He offered a hand to shake.

Sakura hesitated, then completed the handshake. “I’m Sakura Kinomoto.” She looked back toward her companions. “Would you like to meet my friends?”

“Is… that OK?” he asked. He glanced at Touya. Touya’s forehead had developed a wrinkle of glowering.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Sakura asked, although she, too, cast a look her brother’s way. “Come on over. I know my big brother will, whether we invite him or not.”

“Thanks. I'd like that.” He maneuvered around the table and followed Sakura. “I moved here for next term, and I haven't had a chance to make friends yet.”

Sakura easily got the attention of her group. “Everyone, this is my brother’s friend Yukito,” she said. Her voice took a lilt when she said gave name. It must have been unintentional, because she rushed on. “Yukito, this is Rika, Naoko, Chiharu and Takashi,” she pointed to the young women first, then the young man, and leaned down over her best friend, “and Tomoyo.”

Tomoyo answered the introduction first. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Takashi chimed in, “There will be quiz later. I hope you’re good with names.” The girl at his side rolled her eyes.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Yukito greeted.

Touya stood up, dragged his chair closer to the group, and sat down again. Tomoyo turned her head to him a moment before her focus returned to Sakura. Sakura took a seat.

“Are you at the U?” Rika asked.

“Yes,” Yukito answered. “Do you,” he indicated everyone, “attend the university, too?”

Everyone nodded except for Rika. “I attend the college where my fiance teaches,” she provided.

“Show off your ring!” Chiharu, the girl with the curls, encouraged. “Mister Terada gave her a huge rock.”

“Yoshiyuki,” Rika corrected. With genteel grace she extended her hand, upon which she wore a large, marquis-cut crystal.

It was a cubic zirconia, Yue could see, not a diamond. Clow had an interest in diamonds. The ring band may have been ten karat gold. Something in Rika’s eyes showed that she knew, and it did not trouble her.

“Wow, it’s really beautiful,” Yukito said. “Congratulations.” Inwardly, Yue cringed at his alter ego. For the bride to be, it was “best wishes,” not “congratulations.”

Tomoyo said, “Takashi, could you bring over a chair for Yukito?”

“Yukito, would you like to sit down?” Sakura asked, concern for the delayed invitation running across her face.

Touya shot up from his seat without preamble, startling Sakura. “I knew it!” he said, like a curse, as he focused on someone at the other side of the echoing room.

“Oh, Touya -- don’t!” Sakura cried out. Too late, because her brother was up and in action. He didn’t run out through the seating area. He clambered over the low skating rink wall and ran over the ice.

Yue was impressed. Touya had excellent body control. He ran with speed, using his slipping on the ice surface to propel himself forward instead of falling.

“Touya!” Sakura called after him. She looked for a path out of the tables. “I have to go before he gets to Syaoran,” she informed her friends. She grabbed her back and her skates, then put her skates down with confusion.

“Let me help,” Yukito offered. He didn’t cross the ice, but vaulted over the tables until he reached clear walkway. Then he sprinted around the rink toward where Touya had been headed.

A surreptitious glance back confirmed that he had effectively dazzled Sakura.

❧


	3. Arrow, Target

Touya came into Yukito’s line of sight in time for Yukito to see Touya slam a younger man against a square column. Touya grabbed his target by the shirt and hurled him to the floor. The man retaliated with a fiery attack, leaping up from the ground ahead of Touya’s kick and aiming a punch at Touya’s head. Touya evaded, going out of range for the moment.

“Hold up!” Yukito shouted to get the adversaries’ attention. This part of the building was deserted, or had been deserted in recent minutes. “Touya, what’s going on?”

Touya backed out of his fighting stance. “This piece of shit sells drugs to kids,” he said.

The opponent didn’t budge. He had a ready stance, weight on the balls of his feet and arms ready. His eyes were like cups of Chinese tea, full of heat and intensity.

“Then sells the kids to creeps,” Touya completed.

The young man struck with a viper fast kick to Touya’s solar plexus. He yelled with genuine rage.

Touya couldn’t dodge fast enough. The edge of the kick connected, sending him colliding with a large plastic garbage can. “He’s a Li,” he managed to gasp, hurling the name like an epithet.

“I don’t deal drugs!” Li hurled back. He finally registered that Yukito stood watching. He looked at Yukito and his eyes widened. A quick glance at Touya, then Li took off running.

Touya groaned as he pushed himself up to his feet. He started to stumble in pursuit. Yukito grabbed his arm to hold him back.

“You can’t have a fight in here,” Yukito said to Touya.

“Let go of me!” Touya growled.

“Sakura wants you to stop.” Yukito waited until his words registered with Touya. “She doesn’t want you fighting.”

Touya groaned with frustration. He fumed. Yukito let go of his arm when Touya threw his hands up in a gesture of defeat. He ran his hands through his sable hair.

“What’s going on?” Yukito asked.

“I told him to stay away from Sakura,” Touya said. “What were you doing, letting him get away?”

“Touya,” Yukito started. Julian’s old accent crept in, clipping the middle vowels short.

“I’m done here,” Touya said. He stalked off. Yukito watched him until he reached an outside door and passed through it.

Alone, Yue exhaled heavily. Had Syaoran Li recognized him? He knew of the Li family, of course. Syaoran Li, the youngest but most serious of his family line, could have been as much of a candidate as Sakura Kinomoto. An interesting consideration, Yue thought, in light of his own fate.

It stung, that Clow could hand him off to someone else, not for an hour or a night, but for always, in all ways.

But Yukito wouldn’t stand around, thinking about someone else’s life. Yukito started back to Sakura and the others. He would reassure her, comfort her, but not ask for explanation of the situation. It guaranteed that she would tell him all about it, if he could get her away from the others. He was still a stranger, and strangers inspired confidences.

Sakura had been impatient. He wasn’t yet at the tables when he saw her and Tomoyo coming toward him. She saw him and increased her pace. Tomoyo stayed close without appearing to run.

“Did you find them?” she asked.

“I did,” Yukito answered. “The fight broke up when I got there. Touya was angry about that and left on his own.”

“Did anyone get hurt?” Anguished worry shone in Sakura’s eyes, turning their green hue dark.

“No, no one was hurt.” Yukito smiled to encourage her. “Touya was just angry. The other guy ran off pretty quickly.”

“Syaoran,” Sakura sighed. “His name is Syaoran.”

“They don’t get along,” Yukito stated.

“No. Touya won’t believe that Syaoran has changed. He’s not like he thinks.” Sakura gripped her bag.

Tomoyo offered a plastic shopping bag to Yukito. “Here are your things,” she said. “We didn’t want to leave them behind.”

Yukito thanked her. “Did everyone else go home?”

“The rink is closing for the evening,” Tomoyo said. “Sakura and I were on our way out, too.”

“May I walk you to your bus?” Yukito asked. “Or if someone is picking you up, I could wait with you until they arrive.”

“That’s very kind,” Tomoyo said.

“But Tomoyo’s driver is already here,” Sakura said.

Tomoyo finished, “I’ll take Sakura home. It was nice to meet you.”

“Thank you again for your help,” Sakura said. “I’m sorry for getting you involved.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t help much,” Yukito responded.

“No, I really appreciate it,” Sakura reiterated. The spark of an idea brightened her countenance. She took out her mobile phone. “Do you have a phone? Let’s exchange contact info.”

“Um, yes,” Yukito said. He dug the phone from his coat pocket. “I’ll put in your number and call you.”

“Use the app. You both have android phones. It’s easier,” Tomoyo said. She took her state-of-the-art phone from her purse and showed Sakura. Yukito paid attention without getting close.

Sakura held her phone up to Yukito’s. “Like this,” she said, tentatively. When he raised his next to hers, she poked at a glyph on her screen. Her brows came together as she frowned. She looked at Yukito’s phone. “Oh! You have to install it.”

They both stepped closer together while Sakura inexpertly showed Yukito how to active the app. Her shyness was apparent, but outmatched by her determination to complete the task. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder for several minutes while they worked together to pass their contact information from phone to phone.

“Got it?” Tomoyo asked, after their phones chimed in succession.

Yukito looked at Sakura. Sakura nodded. She took a small step back and then another step toward Tomoyo.

“Well, goodnight,” Yukito said.

“Goodnight!” Sakura answered. With a wide smile, she took Tomoyo by the hand, and the two girls ran together.

Success, Yue determined. He scrolled through the two new numbers on the unregistered phone. While getting Sakura’s, he had secretly collected Touya’s as well, knowing it could come in handy.

On his way out of the building, he walked past the Snow Queen cafe. The lights were off, but the roll gate was up, and the place looked haphazardly closed. The granita machine was still running. No one was in sight. Far away, a janitorial crew rolled out their cart to begin the night’s cleaning. Yue crumpled Yukito’s application and pushed it through the flap on the trash can. He followed it with the empty shopping bag. The pen, he slid into an inner pocket of his jacket.

He left the building, heading at a walk toward the address of Yukito’s house. The two mile walk took him through Tomoeda’s downtown, a quaint district composed of a Main Street lined with storefronts and a few blocks of perpendicular side streets with live-work studios businesses set in converted houses. Early in the evening, the stores were already closed for the business day. Some were still closed from Christmas. He passed a children’s play park, where snowfall from earlier still lingered in the cold shadows under dark trees, and a high school and an elementary, and then the boulevard became entirely residential. His house was along a quiet, tree-lined street where neighboring houses also had high fences.

His house was a single story in the classic style, a blue tiled roof and a wall that was partially bamboo and partially hedge. He passed through the gate and up to his front door. At some time in the past it had been a grand house. Now, with mansions not far away, it only seemed conservative. It was one of Clow’s properties, of course, though not one he would ever have personally used. As far as anyone would know, it belonged to the Tsukishiros, an elderly couple whose grandson had moved in with them recently. The caretakers had probably been a couple of oldtimers. They would be “on vacation” while Yukito lived at the house.

Yukito unlocked the door with his house key and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and called, “I’m home!” to test the echo of the empty house. He hung his jacket on the hook. He took off his shoes.

He stepped into the central room and turned on the light. He looked around. It was clean, conservative, and classic, just like the outside of the house. “What a dump,” Yue murmured. He turned off the light and went to the bedroom he would use.

Yue stripped. There wasn’t a item of clothing in the closet that Yukito would not own, so Yue wrapped a towel around his hips and wore nothing else but the blue, oval gem on its chain around his neck. The glasses came off with the clothes, and once undressed, Yue took the hazel tinted contact lenses out. Without the two layers obscuring the world, he felt that he could see correctly again.

He could see himself. He ran his fingers over his head. His hair hadn’t been as short in years. It had never been the dirty platinum blonde, effectively grey, color that it now was. Before Clow, he had kept his hair short, roughly cut, and bleached.

With nothing else to do, he showered, careful of his bruises, then drew a bath to soak in. He didn’t expect the comfortable size of the tub. He ran a finger over the porcelain, then the grout. It was newly installed. Nothing else in the house had been as new.

Yue wanted to believe that the bathtub was a message from Clow. Their first meeting…

He couldn’t keep thinking of Clow. It hurt. He pressed a thumb against a long welt on his thigh to make the pain in his heart move there. That was a pain he could manage. That was a pain that would heal.

He tried to be Yukito, having a pleasant bath after a nutritious dinner. Yukito, the square. Yue couldn’t do it. He had to be Yukito in the company of others; alone, he prefered to be no-one at all, instead. He made his mind go blank.

He was half asleep when he climbed out of the bath. He didn’t have the defenses not to think about his first time with Clow.

☙

“No one steals from me, Julian,” Clow Reed said, standing behind Julian. Clow’s hands drew down from touching Julian’s hair. They lightly rested on the back of Julian’s shoplifted coat.

Clow pushed, and Julian fell forward, bent over the expensive antique couch. Clow was up against him. Julian could feel Clow’s thighs pressing. The carved wood of the couch back dug into Julian’s middle. Clow slid one hand up along Julian’s spine, until the hand rested with a light grasp inside Julian’s coat collar.

“I’ll pay for it,” Julian managed to say around the lump in his throat. Hands shaking, he reached to unbutton his jeans. He had expected their meeting to take this turn.

“By naming your price?” Clow asked. His quiet voice menaced.

Julian stopped undressing. He breathed through his mouth. He looked up and saw the mirrored surface of a tall stereo cabinet, the dark glass doors as reflective as if they had been silvered. Clow looked down with a half-smile. His eyes glinted under low lids.

Slowly, Julian raised his hands and set his palms on the couch back. “No, sir.” Calling him “sir” seemed like a smart choice, a respectful choice. He wet his mouth. He took a breath to steady his voice.

“I could make that bell ring,” he said. “That Moon Bell.”

Clow’s fingers closed, not around Julian’s neck, but with a handful of Julian’s bleached hair. “Are you saying you’re pure?” he asked in the softest voice.

“I’m a virgin,” Julian replied.

Clow laughed. “I don’t believe you.” He yanked Julian’s hair and smiled wider at the gasp. “Why are you here? What’s your game?” He leaned over. “No matter. Don’t answer.” He straightened and stepped away.

Cautiously, Julian righted himself. He didn’t meet Clow’s eyes as he adjusted his jeans.

“Get out. Don’t let me see you again,” Clow commanded.

Julian looked up at him, then. “I need a job,” he said. He had to salvage the opportunity.

“Seems like you have one that suits you,” Clow answered. His smile may as well have been a sneer.

“For my brother. He’s strong.” Julian tried for charming. “You can use a strong guy.” Clow’s face remained stone. “Right?”

“You came to me for your brother?” he asked.

“I can’t do a lot for Kero,” Julian said. “So, yeah. I’m here because I can do this.”

Clow looked him over, head to toe. He took Julian’s wrists and inspected Julian’s hands and fingertips. He put a hand on Julian’s jaw and ran thumb, then forefinger, over the teeth underneath the skin of his cheeks. After the humiliating inspection, he said, “You need a bath.”

Julian’s back went rigid. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“There it is…” Clow nearly purred. “You do have pride.”

❧

Yue opened his eyes, awake all at once. His last thoughts before sleep had been of Clow, his first thought was to wonder why Clow was out of bed. He looked around the room and remembered his situation. Bitterness swept in. He rubbed his eyes.

Yukito got up from the futon. He put on underwear and started his morning calisthenics. He did some stretches.

Afterward, he made himself a healthy breakfast. If his grandparents had not been away on a trip, his grandmother would already be up. She would have beaten him to the kitchen. His grandfather would be in the garden.

Yukito dressed. He put some copies of his resume in a folder, clipped the pen Touya had given him to the cover, and put the folder into a messenger bag. He put on his shoes at the door. He put his bag over his shoulder and checked his hair in the mirror by the house’s front door.

What a loser, Yue thought to himself.

❧


	4. Expectation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cards included as people or objects: The Twin, The Watery, The Light, The Dark, The Illusion, The Libra, The Silent, The Fly.  
> Chickenshit = cowardly  
> The maria (seas) of the moon that Clow recites are the ones that make up the rabbit.

“There it is…” Clow nearly purred. “You do have pride.”

“I’m clean,” Julian insisted. If he sounded sullen, it was because he failed at sounding insulted.

“Your brother needs a job,” Clow stated.

Clow constantly kept Julian off balance. Julian was starting to see the pattern. He needed just ride the waves, let Clow turn the wheel. “He needs a job that needs him,” Julian said. “He’s smart. Don’t tell him I said he was. He’s loyal. He’s strong. He could be an asset to you.”

“How about that bath?” Clow asked.

“Yeah. Sure.” Julian’s jaw felt too tight to open, but somehow the words came out. “Lead the way.”

“I think you can find it.” Clow took a keycard from his pocket. He handed it to Julian.

The card said, The Watery. The Watery was a members-only, full service spa uptown. Julian had never before been able to cadge a guest pass.

“Join me there in an hour,” Clow said.

Julian had left the room without knowing what else to say. Clow hadn’t looked smug, merely confident of his will becoming reality.

Julian took careful note of the time. There was no way he would be late, and something in Clow’s manner made him feel that he shouldn’t be too early to the appointed time, either. There was a late night diner around the corner from the spa; he could kill time there. He checked in with his brother on his way out of the club. They always checked in with each other.

“S’up, Bro,” Kero greeted when he saw Julian approaching. “You went somewhere.” The twins that had been keeping him company wandered off to give the brothers privacy.

The club lights gave the skin on Kero’s arms and shaved head a bronze tint. His muscles had definition, though not the bulk to which he aspired. He wore amber shades and a sharp jacket in leather, courtesy of Julian’s light fingers in a coat room.

Julian waited until they were close enough to talk without being overheard. “I got in,” he said.

Kero swore, satisfied. “You meet the man?”

“I did. We have an appointment.”

Julian felt Kero’s stare drilling into the side of his head. He didn’t acknowledge it. He kept his eyes roving around the club, which was partly from habit and partly to avoid meeting his brother’s eyes.

“Bunny,” Kero started, using the nickname for Julian only he got away with, “what kind of appointment?”

“An appointment,” Julian repeated. “I know what I’m doing, Kero.” He raised his fist, knuckles forward.

Kero met the fist with his own. “Make good choices,” he grumbled by way of parting.

“We never make good choices,” Julian answered, and was rewarded with his brother’s laughing agreement.

☙

Julian sat so he could watch the clock on the diner’s wall. He nursed a lemon lime soda and pushed a crinkle fry around the side plate, not eating. Every few minutes, he pulled out the phone he was using and checked the time on it, in case the clock was off. At fifteen minutes before the appointed hour, he tossed a few slips of legal tender on the table to cover the bill for the meal and walked out to cross the street.

He showed the card to the doorman and was ushered through the first security barrier. The second was just as discreet. The security force looked just like five-star hotel staff. He handed the keycard to a lady in a white tailored suit and perfectly coiffured hair. Her dark counterpart, in a matching black suit, directed Julian to follow her.

She led him out of the foyer and down a hallway. She opened a door and directed him in. She didn’t follow.

Julian stepped into a lounge. Beyond the lush seating, refracting light through a stained glass wall painted kaleidoscopic ripples over the room. The air smelled like mint and snowdrop lilies. Julian smiled to himself. He never told anyone how much he liked the scent of flowers. Snowdrops didn’t grow easily, but sometimes he had seen the small white bells poking up from a crack in the pavement. He entertained the fantasy of digging one up and replanting it somewhere better.

He was self-aware enough to know that the flower in the cement could be taken as a representation of himself. Dig himself up, plant himself in a nice garden somewhere -- he didn’t do it because chicken shit was compost but a flower unwanted in one of those gardens was just a weed for the trash can.

Cruising around the lounge area, he thought about sitting in one of the sofas. He decided that he wanted to be standing when Clow walked in. He looked at his fingernails. They were clean, really clean under the short nails. He had gotten one of Kero’s girlfriends to give him a French manicure earlier, buffed nails, no polish. He positioned himself so that he would appear to be admiring the sculpted pan scale fountain.

Minutes went by, feeling like eternity. Julian finally couldn’t stand the way the water flowed over the hanging pans while the scale stayed in balance. He reached out and tipped one of them. Water splashed everywhere until the pans righted.

The door opened. Julian hurried to shake the water off his hand. Two people in similar, draping clothes came through the room silently. With a nod a Julian, they walked past and into the rooms beyond the glass wall.

Clow walked in after them. He gave Julian a soft smile, and the approval in his eyes gave Julian a feeling that made him moisten his mouth.

“Not waiting long?” Clow asked.

“No,” Julian answered. “Not long.”

“Good,” said Clow.

Julian wished he had sat down. His legs felt like they wanted him to be sitting. His gut felt like he wanted to be kneeling, kneeling at Clow Reed’s feet and hearing him say, again, “good.”

“Who were they?” Julian made himself ask.

Clow tipped his head in the direction of the two people that had passed through the inner doorway. “Massage,” he said, simply.

“I could… massage,” Julian offered.

“We’ll see,” said Clow. He extended an arm and indicated that Julian should proceed through to the next rooms.

There was a very simple room, with shelves and a plain wood bench, in which to undress. The scent of the shelves indicated cedar. Julian couldn’t watch Clow undress, but he could feel Clow observing Julian undress while he himself disrobed.

Julian’s phone chimed and buzzed with an incoming message. Julian nearly dropped it on the floor as he rushed to silence it. He chanced a glance at Clow, but Clow was no longer watching him. Naked and without glasses, Clow went on to the next room.

The text was from Kero. It read: “That fast. Started 2nite. Sweet, B.”

“B,” for Bunny. Kero had even used punctuation and nearly full phrases, which meant he was truly grateful.

Julian walked into the next room carrying his towel. Clow was already in the jacuzzi tub up to his chest, arms resting on the tub edge behind him. His loose ponytail draped partly in the water jets.

“Some bath,” Julian said. The jacuzzi was the size of a small pool. It could fit six without anyone getting kicked. He stood on the tiles, thinking about where to step in and showing off his body to Clow. He was lighter toned than Kero, taking after the pale half of the genetics.

Clow said, “It’s better when you’re in it.”

Julian stepped in from where he was standing. Then he pushed off the side and glided through the water until he was next to Clow. He hoped he had looked graceful. When his foot bumped Clow’s leg it was accidental, but he stayed where he landed, which put him right under Clow’s arm. There was nowhere to put his hands but underwater. He sunk down to his shoulders.

The sigh that escaped him was genuine. He hadn’t breathed deeply in minutes.

“Tell me about that,” Clow intoned, reaching his free arm around and placing fingers on the medallion tattoo below Yue’s nipple. His fingers stayed where they had landed.

“It’s the rabbit in the moon.” Julian stared at Clow’s mouth because he couldn’t look into his eyes.

“Holding a mallet. With the moon overlaid on a snowflake. Who did it to you?” Clow asked.

Julian shook his head, once. “I did it,” he hurried to say. “I mean, I liked the idea, and I bought it from the artist myself.” He licked his lips. “It’s why my brother calls me Bunny.” He took a shallow breath, afraid to move. “I don’t know why I told you that.”

Clow rubbed his fingers over the circle. “Maria Humorum, Nubium, Vaopurm, Imbrium,” he whispered, “Oceanus Procellarum, Mare Serenitatis.Tranquilitatis. Nectaris. Fecunditatis.”

“Snow Bunny,” Julian whispered, because he had no louder voice.

“Yue,” Clow said.

Julian swallowed. “Is that a spell?” he asked. He still watched Clow’s mouth.

“The name of the moon,” said Clow. “Your name.” His fingers slid upward, over Julian’s nipple. They continued upward across Julian’s chest until Clow pressed his whole hand over Julian’s shoulder, then curled his hand around the back of Julian’s neck. His fingers spread, and he cradled Julian’s head.

His other arm was still around Julian’s shoulders.

Julian leaned in as if nothing else could occur.

“Yue,” Clow repeated.

Julian said, “Yes, Clow.”

Clow put his lips against Yue’s, his mouth onto Yue’s mouth, his tongue into Yue’s mouth. He kissed him with ownership.

Yue fell into Clow. He grasped onto Clow’s back while Clow kissed him. The jacuzzi jets burbled, drowning the wet sounds of thirsty mouths with the noise of current. Clow moved his arm down from Yue’s shoulders until his hand grasped Yue’s backside. The grip lifted Yue further up against Clow’s chest.

A storm of thoughts rose up and swirled in Yue’s mind. Intent on kissing, he couldn’t stop being aware of his body pressed up against Clow’s. There was no hiding his arousal. Clow would feel it as surely as Yue could feel Clow’s interest pulsing below Yue’s posterior. It brushed against his curves.

Clow would know. Clow would open Yue’s ass cheeks and push his way in. Would it happen like that, here in the water, with no lube and no refusal? He kissed Clow and thought about how he hadn’t lied about his inexperience. Maybe he could get away with going down on him underwater. It would be hot. It might be satisfactory. Yue knew that a first time would hurt, hurt badly, and worse if Clow pushed him down to be impaled on a rigid staff, here and now, here in the water, with no easing into it…!

The feel of Clow pulling his hair registered a moment after the motion of his head moving backward. The loss of contact with Clow’s tongue and lips stung. Yue opened his eyes and found himself looking directly into Clow’s eyes.

“Yue, what do you expect to happen?” Clow asked.

The answer came to him, bringing clarity to the chaos in his thoughts. “Whatever you want to have happen, Clow,” he answered.

“Then relax,” Clow said. “You aren’t in charge.” His eyes, not quite focused, shone with humor. His pupils had dilated so widely that they looked as though they contained night. “Remember, you can take it.”

Yue lowered his eyes.

Clow shifted his hands onto Yue’s seat, braced himself, and lifted Yue up onto the ledge of the jacuzzi tub. His grunt of effort sounded definitive of something. When he realized what Clow was doing, Yue helped, pushing himself the rest of the way out until he sat with only his legs in the water. Clow followed him out, clambering and splashing, forcing Yue to lie back in the puddles on the stone tile. He kneeled above Yue, straddling him. His bedraggled hair dripped rivulets along his torso.

Slowly, he lowered himself down, his elbows bending on each side of Yue’s head. Clow’s head descended. His face drew down to Yue’s.

“I can’t see for shit without my glasses,” Clow said.

Yue opened his mouth in astonishment. He didn’t laugh, because Clow’s mouth was on his. Yue pushed himself up on his elbows to press a harder kiss.

The position was awkward, physically uncomfortable. The rough stone ground into his elbows. Dripped water made a puddle under his thighs and ass. His legs were still in the water, with the jets drumming on his calves. His nipples were cold and already erect, and his boner bobbed tentatively against the tip of Clow’s erection, making Yue feel like he might go insane.

He thrust his hips upward and groaned, groaned with all the yearning he felt to be touched, to be held. To be protected. To be cherished.

“What do you want?” Clow whispered.

“To be yours,” Yue answered, a wail from something small and frightened that lived behind his ribs. Tears flooded his lashes, and he immediately regretted the outburst. He collapsed back to the hard floor, which hurt, but in a way he could parse, ordinary pain that made sense. He curled over onto his side.

Clow, still above him, collected Yue in an embrace. Sitting on the ground, he pulled Yue against him, arms around him, hands stroking his back. He let Yue be still on an emotional edge, not weeping but not free of the threat of dissolution.

“OK,” Yue murmured.

“When you’re ready,” Clow said.

“I’m OK now,” Yue said. He straightened up out of Clow’s arms. He wiped his eyes. “I’m sorr-- ah!”

Clow had dug his fingertips and nails into the muscles of Yue’s thigh. The sharp, clear pain interrupted Yue’s apology.

Yue stood up and took a step back. Clow raised an arm toward him. “We have massages to receive,” he said. That Yue would give him a hand up was too obvious for him to need to ask for it. Yue took his hand and assisted Clow in standing.

“Are you going to fuck me?” Yue asked.

Clow answered before he strode out to the adjoining room. “Of course,” he said. “Later.”

☙


	5. Windy

"This isn't the ground floor," Kerberos said to himself. "It's the basement."

His badge was a clipped on rectangle of clear plastic, with his stupid cover name printed next to a goofy photo. Clow had surely picked the name himself and had a long laugh. At the moment, he was simmering with ways to get even with Clow. Yue had a perfectly reasonable name. Clow always favored Yue. He teased Yue a little but he didn’t pull jokes on him like he always did to Kero.

“Huh,” Kerberos grunted, to himself. He hadn’t thought about himself as “Kero” since before he starting working for Clow. Maybe because Yue was using a name that played off his old nickname, Snow Bunny, Kerberos was thinking of himself as Kero.

It was better than “Kay Rochan.” What self respecting man was ever name Kay? Why did he need a cover name, anyway? On the street, he was known as The Beast. The girl wouldn’t recognize him for who he was to Clow Reed. Judging by the setup of the Kinomoto business, he doubted she had heard of Clow Reed.

In the ugly security guard suit -- it was yellow and it itched -- he was a nobody. He couldn’t think of a reason that would bring her down to the loading dock. It was all forklifts and delivery vans. Back-up beeping echoed against the walls. In spite of the noise, the place was putting him to sleep. There was nothing to do but check paperwork and watch the different delivery agencies load their vans with the right boxes.

Girls didn’t like places that stank like motor oil. No way that Windy liked it, sitting at her desk in the little glassed-in office by the stairs. Kerberos looked up, expecting to see Windy hovering over her computer, extra-large tea latte in hand.

She was there. Frantically gesturing with an empty cup and apologizing to an auburn-haired girl that was apologizing to Windy.

☙

Sakura didn’t usually go down to the basement of the company building, but her father was out of town on business, and he had wanted some shipping data that Sakura couldn’t find on the main computer network. The idea came to her to go down to the shipping office and ask for the data there. They were sure to have it.

She would have sent an email, but there was a new shipping office manager, and Sakura figured it would take more time to find the new contact information that to simply go downstairs and ask in person.

She needed to be helpful to her father. Touya was getting worse. He was still working, sometimes, but he had dropped out of university and spent most of his time at home in his bedroom. With a printout copy of her father’s query in hand, she found the stairwell down to the loading dock and made her way down.

The office was easy to find. It was right by the stairway door and just at the end of a wide catwalk. She could see that it was occupied. A tall woman with long, loose hair stood at her desk, hunched over, looking at the screen. She was half out of her chair, with a twenty ounce paper cup in one hand and the other hand tapping the touchscreen monitor stacked on top of a computer tower set on its side.

Sakura walked up to the open door. The shipping dock noise level was so high that she hadn’t been able to hear her steps ringing on the grate of the catwalk. The woman hadn’t heard her, either, because she was still intent on her screen. Sakura knocked on the door frame. “Hello?”

The woman at her desk still didn’t look up. Sakura noticed the brown plastic placard in the holder on the door. “Ms. Arcana?” she called in. Still unnoticed, Sakura took a step into the office to put herself in visual range. “Hello. Windy?” She approached the desk.

The woman looked up at the close movement and screeched, arms flailing. The contents of her coffee cup when flying. A stack of shipping manifests fell off her desk. The contents of her cup gushed onto computer and keyboard. File folders slid to the floor. The desk chair toppled over.

“Oh my god are you OK?” Sakura yelled. She chased after a roll of shop towels that had bounded to the floor. Grabbing the roll, she pushed it toward Windy.

At the same time, Windy began screaming under her breath at the now black computer screen. “No no no no Goddontdothis no!” She cast a desperate look at Sakura. She reached into her ears with the hand that wasn’t holding the now-empty latte cup. Fluorescent pink earplugs came out in her hand.

Sakura stood aghast. “What did I do?” she asked.

“I’m so sorry!” Windy cried. She froze where she stood. “Who are you?”

“I’m Sakura Kinomoto. I came for some files.” Sakura took a long look at the unresponsive computer. “I’m so sorry. Does that mean…?”

“We can get them back,” Windy said, gesturing frantically with the empty cup. “I think.”

“How bad is it?” Sakura asked. “It’s all backed up on the network, isn’t it?”

“Not those files,” Windy said. “The system auto backs up every hour. I hadn’t done a manual backup yet.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sakura repeated. “What were they?”

Windy shrugged. She gestured to their surroundings. “Shipping orders,” she said. “Outbound freight. Inbound freight.”

“But it will be alright, won’t it?” Sakura asked. “The drivers only pick up the boxes that are going out?” The two women looked through the glass down to the level below. From the height, Sakura could only discern that crates were moving on forklifts and hand trucks to waiting vehicles. A bald man in yellow was coming up the stair from the dock.  “Here’s someone now who will know what’s going on.”

☙

That was Sakura Kinomoto. Kerberos knew that much. Windy’s excitement meant that she had successfully put their plan in action. As Kerberos went up the stairs, he looked back down behind him and saw shipping crates disappearing into freight trucks. At the grated walkway, he jogged toward the open office.

“Hey there,” he greeted.

“Hello,” Sakura replied.

Kerberos pulled his badge off and stuffed it in his pants pocket. “I’m Kero… uh… beros.” He heard himself. “Kerberos.”

Behind Sakura, Windy was giving him a look of incredulity.

“Kero…?” Sakura asked.

“Yeah. Just Kero’s good,” he said. “Say, uh, did something happen up here?”

“Oh my God. The trucks!” Windy gasped. She banged her hands flat against the glass window above the loading dock. “Stop!”

Windy was a damned good actress, Kerberos thought. He even believed her, and he knew the plan had been to scatter the freight in order to make Sakura solve the mess that made.

“What happened?” Sakura asked with increasing confusion.

Kerberos looked down at the dock. Not a single box, crate, or container remained. “Was the inbound going back?” he asked.

Windy shook her head, no. “Miss Kinomoto, I’m so sorry,” she started.

“Give me keys to a truck. We’ll have to chase down the ones we can before they get to the delivery company warehouses,” Kerberos demanded. Windy went to a cabinet on the wall. “You’ll have to come with me,” Kerberos said to Sakura.

“Me?” Sakura exclaimed.

Kerberos said, “I don’t have the authorization. You do, miss.”

“Take this one,” Windy said. She held out an ignition key on a pink parrothead key fob.

Kerberos took the key from Windy and put it in Sakura’s hand. “You can handle this,” he said. He liked the way her face grew serious and her hand closed around the car key.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I can do this!”

“We have to hurry --” Kerberos hadn’t finished speaking, and Sakura was already racing across the walkway and down the metal stairs. “Hey, Sakura! Me too!” He ran after her.

At the bottom of the stairs, she looked around her. Then she called up to Windy, who was watching from the walkway, “Which one is it?” She dangled the key above her head.

Windy pointed to a flatbed auto transport truck against the wall. The car on the slope was a candy pink convertible Corvette. The top was down.

“I thought we were getting a truck!” Kerberos yelled. Windy shrugged. Sakura hesitated only have a moment longer before sprinting to the car and climbing into the drivers seat.

“Help me get this released!” she called to Kerberos. She started the engine. Kerberos unhooked the chains. She let the handbrake go and had her feet on the pedals as soon as Kerberos was in the passenger seat.

Tires squealed over the concrete. The Corvette fishtailed and righted under Sakura’s steering control. Kerberos gripped the doorframe. They slowed briefly as Sakura shifted gears on the driveway, but she made up for the delay with the Corvette’s response time to gas.

“There’s one!” Kero yelled over the noise of the wind as he pointed to a freight truck turning down the corner.

Sakura whipped the sportscar between lanes, snapping in and out of the spaces between other cars, until she gained distanced and closed in on the freight truck.

Kero shouted, “Yeah! You can drive!” He already felt proud of her. She broke traffic laws like a pro.

“I take lessons!” Sakura shouted. She cut into an alley and took a ninety-degree turn into a tiny parking lot. She took the car over a low strip of landscaping border, so narrowly squeezing the convertible between the shrubs that azalea flowers pelted Kero. Cutting across a second parking lot, she shot out onto the arterial street a block ahead of the targeted truck -- on the opposite side of the divided street.

She pulled over and braked.

“What are you doing, Sakura?” Kero watched her stand up in the driver’s seat and fish her phone out of her pocket. “It’ll get away!”

She ignored him. With a foot on the top edge of the door, she panned her phone at the truck as it approached and passed. She climbed down, simultaneously tapping out something on the phone screen.

She turned to Kero once she was back in the seat.  Clicking her seat belt buckle, she asked, “Where do we find the next one?” She looked up and down the street. “Kero? Windy can call the shipping company and hold the driver. The capture I sent her shows the license plate and company logo.”

Kero leaned back in his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest, but also nodded and grinned at Sakura. “Alright,” he said, his approval pouring out in one slow word. “Second Street feeds onto the highway. They’ll have to take it to get to the port or the airport. After that, we can swing by the warehouses on Industry Way.”

“Mmh!” Sakura responded. Determination apparent, she rejoined traffic and flipped a U-turn toward the intersection with Second Street.

❧


	6. The One She Loves Most

A lean, dark man stood in in the artificial light of a vending machine, considering the  choices. He fed the machine some coins. His finger hovered over the button for a Kit Kat. He sighed.

A government secretary walked past him. “Excuse me, Agent Sun,” the secretary said as he sidled between Spinel and a potted artificial ficus. Spinel gave him a nod. Except for the clerks in the archives, Spinel Sun hadn’t learned anyone’s names yet. His recent assignment at this location was only part of the reason. Mostly, he didn’t care.

He was about to select low-fat potato chips when a hand with long, hot pink glittery fingernail polish slammed on the button for Skittles. The sound made by the bag of candy as it clunked into the drawer echoed in the narrow corridor.

Nakuru Akizuki’s voice bounced off the walls with more vigor. “Come on, Suppie. Brighten up your mood. What goes together better than Sun and rainbows?”

“That was going to be my lunch, Ruby Moon,” Spinel sighed.

She fished the Skittles bag out of the drawer. “Here you go. Eat up,” she said. A shark-like smile spread across her face.

Spinel looked her over. “Shouldn’t you be wearing… something else? A business suit, perhaps?” he asked. She wasn’t dressed for her assignment, unless teenagers these days wore corset tops and vinyl skirts as daywear. Nakuru had decked herself out as if going to a nightclub, not a high school. Her platform shoes were certainly not regulation.

“What does it matter,” she asked. “We’re not local agents. I look cute. That’s all that counts!”

“Spend less time on your wardrobe and more on your report paperwork,” Spinel said. He shoved the bag of candy into a trash bin as they walked by one.

Nakuru pushed ahead and swung open an office door. She continued in and took the best chair. Then she tossed her bag onto the small conference room table. “Touya-baby quit the slushy shop. He’s practically a shut-in. I can’t get close to him.”

“He’s our best lead, Ruby Moon,” came a resonant voice from the doorway. The director entered and took a seat, saying, “I need you to stay on him. Use your charm.”

Spinel smirked to himself. He opened a file. “Eriol, Syaoran Li continues to keep a low profile. We’ve tapped his calls, but Hong Kong is cagey about what they say on the phone line. All we have been able to discern is that the matriarch is not happy with young Mr. Li.”

“We need to be a patient,” Eriol Hiiragizawa said to his subordinates. “When the pawns are in motion, the knights will be soon to appear. It won’t be long until checkmate.”

☙

Sakura woke thinking that she had worked out too hard in her pilates class. A fuzzy-headed minute later, she turned off the buzzing noise next to her head. Picking up the phone, she read the text message. It didn’t make sense.

She sat up and looked at it again. After a while, she remembered who Kero was. She had given him her number to contact her with follow up on the problem with the scattered freight. “READY FOR A GREAT MORNING? TIME TO GET GOING” the message said.

She held the screen at arm’s length, as if the text was actually hurting her ears. “Sheesh, Kero,” she muttered. “You’re not much older than me. How can you not know that’s shouting?”

She climbed out of bed, urged by a hungry rumble in her stomach. She brushed her hair and dressed quickly, thinking about the crazy hours she had spent, late into the night, tracking as many of the mis-shipped packages as they could find. Every truck they caught up to helped sort out the others, since some of the drivers remembered who else had been picking up shipments, and in other cases, multiple boxes had been mixed up in the same cargo. The shipping companies had their own tracking, which helped in the process of elimination.

Sakura had done as much as she could, for the time being. This morning, she needed to grab breakfast and head to class. She dressed, picked a pair of earrings, grabbed her lipgloss, and ran downstairs. Touya sat at the bar counter, in sweats, drinking orange juice.

The Kinomotos didn’t have a house for entertaining. The house was modest and comfortable, homey, unlike Tomoyo’s with its grand dining room and entertainment facilities. The Kinomotos rarely had guests. Staff came in to prepare meals, clean, and maintain the landscaping; otherwise, it was most often just Sakura and Touya, with Fujitaka off on business so often.

She opened the refrigerator, but none of the prepared meals appealed. Instead, she grabbed a couple of danishes from a pastry tray, stuffed one in her mouth, and continued on through the kitchen door to the back garden. When she saw Kero coming up the walkway along the side of the house, she almost ducked back in.

“Sakura!” he called out, spotting her.

She resolved to keep walking. Kero might get the message that she had somewhere to be.

“Hey, I brought you a cup of coffee,” he said. He held up a lidded paper cup. “To get the day going.” When she was in reaching distance, he handed it to her. She took it, but kept walking, and he turned around and kept pace beside her.

She handed him the second danish. “Thanks,” she said around the last bites of her pastry. She was unable not to acknowledge the gift of caffeine.

“No problem. So, I have a hunch about the boxes we haven’t recovered yet,” he started.

Sakura shook her head. “It has to wait. I have school and a hundred other things today.”

“But you have to,” Kero argued. “This is important. Really important.”

“It’s impossible,” Sakura said. “I’ll… have to tell Dad and leave the rest to him.”

Kero gave her a look of astonishment. “You said you needed to help your father more! You can’t leave this for him to sort out after a long trip!”

Sakura couldn’t help a whimper, but she turned it into a noise of determination and picked up her pace. “Right now, I have to go to school,” she said.

Kero followed. “Why aren’t you driving your car?”

“I don’t know that it is my car,” Sakura answered. “Who would give me a gift like that?”

“Maybe… a friend,” Kero said.

“I can take the light rail to school. I don’t need to drive.” She stopped suddenly. Kero was cute, in his own way, with his encouraging manner. He was like a personal trainer on an endorphin high. And he was nice looking, too: suntan on dark skin, light colored eyes behind his sunglasses, and a form that looked like he put some regular effort into keeping in trim. She wasn’t his type at all, but he was, well, cute, in spite of being probably older than her brother. Still, she did not want him following her around like a lost pet. “Don’t follow me,” she said. She quickly turned and hurried away.

Walking down the sidewalk, she sent a text to Tomoyo to let her know that she would meet her at their usual bench under her namesake trees at the U. Sakura looked up from her phone just in time to stop before running into someone coming around the corner.

“Ah, excuse me!” Yukito apologized. He stepped out of the way so that Sakura could pass.

“Yukito! Um, good morning,” Sakura greeted.

“Good morning to you.”

Yukito smiled, and to Sakura it was like her heart fluttered. She gripped her coffee cup.

“Are you alright?” Yukito asked.

“Yes! Um, I feel great!” Sakura giggled. She tried to get her feet back on the ground. “You must be on the way to see Touya,” she guessed. “He will be happy to see you. I don’t think he has any plans.”

Yukito looked back the way Sakura had come. “Sure. That’s right. I was on my way to see Touya,” he confirmed. “When is your last class, Sakura? Maybe we can meet for tea, later.”

“I have a break at two-thirty. Text me!” Sakura lingered half a second longer before leaving. She turned back to wave to Yukito. He waved back to her.

As soon as she was out of his line of sight, she gave herself a hug and twirled in place. Yukito was so princely, but also approachable. He had such a gentle manner, and kind eyes. It was funny, how he made her feel floaty, kind of dreamy, whenever she talked to him.

She hoped he would be able to get Touya out of the house today. With school back in session, and her father out of town, Touya might stay shut up in his room all day. If being alone made him happy, she wouldn’t worry about him so much, but Touya wasn’t happy. He even seemed frustrated with himself, with the way he was living. He didn’t date anyone, not since Kaho, and she hadn’t thought he had any friends. She was glad that he had Yukito. He seemed like the kind of energetic personality that could improve her brother’s moodiness.

She headed toward Penguin Park. Her path took her through the park, then on a walkway, shadowed by trees. There, she slowed down and looked into the trees as she walked.

Syaoran saw her first. He straightened up from where he had been leaning on a tree, and he jogged over to her. She took a step into the woods and waited for him. When he was close enough, she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him lift her onto her toes.

“Are you alright?” she asked him, keeping her voice down.

“I’m fine. You know you’re brother can’t touch me,” he answered. “It’s good to see you.”

“Oh, Syaoran,” Sakura sighed into his shoulder. “You shouldn’t come around if Touya’s nearby. He gets so angry.”

“But how can we be together, if you’re brother won’t even let me talk to him?” Syaoran asked. “He acts like I’m the worst kind of person. Does he even really think that’s what I am, or my family?”

“I don’t know,” Sakura said. “He used to rant about organized crime and secret organizations.”

“He thinks my family is me,” said Syaoran. “I can’t stop being a Li, but you know I don’t want anything to do with the family business.” He rested his forehead against Sakura’s forehead. “I only want to be with you.”

“And I want to be with you,” Sakura echoed. “Right now, all we can do is give it time.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Syaoran said.

Sakura thought briefly of Yukito and felt a twinge of guilt. “I love you, Syaoran,” Sakura said. “Only you.”

Syaoran pivoted his head down and gave her a soft kiss. “I love you to, Sakura,” he said.

☙

So the way to Sakura, Yue thought to himself, was her brother. Touya was not just a back-up plan. Sakura treated Yukito with ready friendship because she assumed that Yukito and Touya were already friends. That required Yue to establish that friendship as quickly as possible. The more time passed, the greater the possibility that the truth would come out, making Yukito appear to be a liar.

At the gate to the Kinomoto residence, Yue sent a simple text message to Touya. “Sakura gave me your number. Coming up the stairs now.”

Yukito opened the unlocked gate and jogged up the stairs to the modest two-story house. He knocked on the door, then waited on the porch. No one answered. Yukito took a seat on the painted bench under the front window.

Kerberos walked around from the side of the house, looking distracted. He must have noticed Yukito from the corner of his eye, because he stopped, climbed over the shrubbery to get up to the porch, and plopped down beside Yukito. “The kid’s gone to school,” he said to Yue.

“I’m here to see Touya,” Yukito answered.

“Well, he’s not going to get the door. You’d better go around to the kitchen.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.” Yukito got up to follow through.

“Snow bunny,” Kerberos said, “you look different.”

Yue looked at his brother. “You look the same, Kero.”

Kero shrugged and grinned. “That’s right. Why mess with perfection?”

☙

 


	7. Intensity

Touya admitted curiosity to himself. He had been thinking about getting dressed just to go back to the skate rink and see if Yukito had gotten the job, but Touya was still in his sweats because Akizuki made a great excuse not to do it. Wearing sweats implied that he might go for a run or a workout, as he continually promised himself. Likewise, with the orange juice. Exercise and eating better were ways to help beat depression, and Touya knew he was depressed.

He didn’t like it. Every day was a fight, and he kept being knocked into the corner. It wasn’t just one thing. It wasn’t his mom, or Kaho, or even Sakura being with that Li guy. Bad stuff was happening around his family, and Touya couldn’t do anything to keep them safe. Instead, he hid away, spending hours trying to break into his dad’s private computer and trying to dig up information on the deep web that could help him. Touya wasn’t a hacker; he’d only seen the ghost of information key to revealing important secrets.

A light knock that sounded on the kitchen door, followed by a cheerful, tentative, “Hello?” had Touya off his seat and in the passway in a second. He thought he would have to chase away some kind of salesman. Instead, it was Yukito Tsukishiro standing in the door, as if Touya’s curiosity had conjured him.

“Hi,” Yukito called in. “Would it be alright if I came in?”

Touya leaned against the wall. His heart was racing with anxiety, a response to having any unexpected visitor. He stepped out of the way once Yukito came into the kitchen. Touya retreated further into the house, and Yukito followed.

“I was, uh, just heading to a workout,” Touya said to explain his attire.

“Great! Do you mind if I come along?” Yukito asked. “I mean, if you don’t mind me watching.”

For a passing moment, their eyes met. Yukito’s honest-looking eyes met Touya’s openly, but Touya sense that there was something else there, just as he had the night before at the Snow Queen. It was an instinct, like a tug on a line connecting the two of them together. Like a string with an empty can on each end, and Touya was just waiting for Yukito to whisper secrets into it.

_Fuck_ , Touya thought to himself.  _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._  “Yeah. Cool,” he answered aloud. “The gym’s downstairs.” He was going to have to get a towel. He decided to steal one from the guest bathroom in the hall.

“Lead the way,” Yukito said.

He did lead the way, down to the next floor where a few rooms had been converted into a home gym. Sakura regularly used it, the treadmill and the free weights, Touya guessed. He himself didn’t feel up to running, so he tugged the heavy bag free.

Yukito perused the room. “Do you come down here every morning?” he asked.

“Nah. Sometimes I run,” Touya answered: not the truth but not completely a lie. He used to spend a lot of time on the track.

“We should go running together some time,” Yukito offered.

Touya nodded. He looked at the punching bag, thinking that he should wrap his hands, but suddenly he felt angry, really angry, and wanted to feel the leather under his bare fists.

He started pounding the bag. It hurt his hands, at first, and shoulders and arms and back, too. He was stiff and out of shape from sitting around. Soon, though, he fell into a rhythm. The bag took his anger and asked for more. He liked that.

He started to sweat. For only a moment, he hesitated pulling off his sweatshirt. Yukito was watching, really watching, standing at a safe distance and smiling with an expression of appreciation, maybe even approval. Touya pulled his sweatshirt over his head, tossed it on the ground out of the way, and went back to the bag.

Gradually, he recalled a routine of punching and kicking. The bag rocked with each blow, and the rattle of chains and thud of flesh on leather echoed against the walls. He was breathing hard. His sweat dripped from hairline to waistline. His knuckles were showing the abuse, and he didn’t feel it. Or he did feel it, but it felt like repair, not damage.

Finally, he stopped. He leaned over, hands on his knees, and breathed. Through dripping sweat and loose hair, he glanced at Yukito, remembering all at once that he was there.

For a flash, there was someone else watching, someone who wore Yukito’s face but wasn’t him.

Touya blinked the sweat out of his eyes. He straightened up. Yukito looked normal, except for a poorly hidden bashfulness about his gaze on Touya. “Yeah, let’s go running together tomorrow,” Touya said. “So running’s your thing?”

“It used to be,” Yukito said. “I don’t exercise as much as I should. I’d like to get back into it, though.”

“I should have warmed up,” Touya said, stretching.

“Oh. I messed up your routine,” said Yukito. “Do you want me to go?”

Touya stretched out the tension in his back. “If you don’t have to leave, you can hang out. Have you had breakfast? We have an espresso machine upstairs. I’ll fix you something.”

“I would like that,” Yukito replied. “But you haven’t seen how much I can put in my mouth.” He paused, as if to let that sink it, even though the line was delivered with absolute innocence. “I mean, I eat a lot. You might regret the offer.”

It was his turn for a line, something coy to let Yukito know the signal had been received and accepted. Touya couldn’t think of what to say. The attraction was no surprise, but despite his orientation, Touya didn’t have the practice.

He had to say something. “Let’s go upstairs,” Touya said, meaning up to the kitchen.

“Or we can do that, yeah,” Yukito replied in a voice that was ninety percent whisper and zero percent bullshit.

Touya stood speechless.  _Shitshitshitshitshit_ , was all he could think. He wet his mouth, trying to think of words. People didn’t just do this, did they? Walk into your house and proposition you? Invite a near stranger into their house and have sex? His bedroom was a shit hole, but the maid service had just refreshed the guest bedroom and rest of the house.

The thing was, Touya realized, it wasn’t Yukito who had propositioned him. Yukito seemed like a modest guy, the kind that would want three dates before a kiss, let alone a night together. And it would be a night together, not a quickie on an unfamiliar bed.

Touya wanted to know more about Yukito. He didn’t trust the voice that had whispered across the room. Not yet, anyway. Maybe that was Yukito, too, but right now Touya wasn’t ready to accept that.

“How do you like your omelette,” Touya asked, instead. It sounded stupid, but safe.

Yukito was back. He grinned. “The fluffy kind,” he said. “Whatever you put in yours is good with me.”

“You like cilantro? Peppers?”

“Anything,” Yukito said.

Touya picked up his sweatshirt and pulled it on. He felt guilty for flirting, showing off his body like he was desperate to get sweaty in a different way. He wasn’t desperate. Truth be told, he was a guy that wanted to wait until the third date before a goodnight kiss. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten past holding hands, with Kaho, and not because he hadn’t daydreamed about lying in her arms.

“Sounds good,” Touya said. He resigned himself to the reality that he had passed up a hot half hour in his bathroom shower with a willing bedmate and went to climb the stairs back up to the next floor. He was on the stair above Yukito when Yukito commented.

“The other offer is still open whenever you want it,” Yukito said, as if he referred to an offer to borrow school notes.

Touya turned around on the stair. Yukito, still all sunshine, joined him on the step. They shared a tight, intimate space.

Touya put his hand on the wall beside Yukito’s head. He was aware that he smelled of sweat. He hoped he didn’t smell terrified. Yukito kept smiling, a soft smile that put golden highlights in his eyes. He reached up and removed his glasses, tucking them in his pants pocket, his eyelashes modestly covering his eyes as if he were undressing.

Touya bent his elbow. His face was an inch from Yukito’s. Yukito turned his eyes so they focused on Touya’s mouth. Touya took that final, fatal step in that closed the distance between them.

Yukito brought his lips close, but Touya made the contact. He pressed his lips to Yukito’s, and when Yukito opened his mouth, Touya opened his mouth, too. He made sound in his throat that he hoped sounded sexy. When he pulled back from the kiss, he hovered at Yukito’s lips for a minute more, breathing the same breath as the other man.

“Do you want me, To’ya?” Yukito asked, quietly, sweetly.

Touya nodded, yes. His nose rubbed against Yukito’s nose, and he wanted to sink into another kiss. He wanted to know what it was like to act out a fantasy. “Yeah, I do,” he grumbled. His hands closed into fists. “But right now, I want to make us omelettes. Then eat them. Then go running tomorrow.” He leaned back. “That’s it. For a start.” He turned and pounded up the stairs as if carrying the weight of his punching bag.

He heard Yukito’s footsteps following him up. Yukito took a seat at the pass through to the kitchen and watched Touya over the counter while he cooked. Touya caught his eye and smiled in spite of his embarrassment. He cooked with a little more flair than usual. To be honest, he was impressed with himself for cooking at all.

When he flipped the first of the omelettes onto a hot plate, Yukito cheered. “You’re good at this, To’ya,” he said.

Touya slipped the hot plate into the warm oven. The second omelette was ready to fold. The way Yukito said his name felt like Yukito’s lips brushing on Touya’s.

Touya served both dishes and sat beside Yukito to eat. The food was good, filling and nutritious. “How is it?” he asked.

“Fluffy. Perfect,” Yukito replied.

“Did you take that job at the rink?” Touya asked.

“No,” Yukito answered. “No point.” He gave Touya a flirtatious smile.

“Good. You could do better.”

“So could you. Why do you work in places like that?” Yukito asked.

Touya sighed. “Ask me some other time,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound rude,” he explained, “but I have… stuff… going on.”

“I hope you’ll tell me about it,” Yukito said, “sometime.” He had finished his omelette. He lay the fork down on the plate. “This was good. Do you want me to go, now?”

Touya nodded. “It’s not what I want. It’s what has to happen.”

Yukito caressed Touya’s hand while sliding off the barstool. “What time do you want me here tomorrow, for our run?”

“Make it early,” Touya said. “Seven?”

“I’m yours at seven. See you then.” He smiled and guided himself out the kitchen door, stopping before he went out of sight to give Touya a goodbye wave.

“What the hell,” Touya said to himself. He put his head down on the counter and wondered how he was going to think about anything but Yuki until he saw him again.

❧


	8. Glow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuki Tachibana is from the Silent card Episode. Rei Tachibana is from the Dash episode.  
> Cards as people/objects: The Glow, The Sword, The Shield, The Song, The Voice

Sakura finished telling Tomoyo everything about her recent adventure. It took all day, fit in at breaks and finally, after their last class that day in the afternoon. Tomoyo was always a patient, attentive listener.

“Could it be Great-Grandfather?” Tomoyo asked, when Sakura brought up the pink sports car.

Sakura thought about the stately old man that she had met a summer when she was ten, when Tomoyo’s mother had arranged a for Sakura’s family to stay at a cabin on the mountain while he was in residence nearby. Sakura and her mother’s grandfather had been in good standing with each other since that time, and Sakura had even gotten Masaki Amamiya to meet with her father. The old man was very wealthy and powerful. Still, his gifts tended to be more old-fashioned. Sonomi, Tomoyo’s mother, had been the one to help Sakura pay for the speed driving lessons.

“It would be strange,” Sakura answered. “He doesn’t send gifts without a note.”

“No, you must be right. Great-Grandfather’s manners are from his time,” Tomoyo agreed. “Perhaps, Sakura, you have an unknown benefactor. A patron.”

“A patron for what?” Sakura pondered. “I’m a pretty ordinary girl.”

Tomoyo turned contemplative. “You aren’t at all,” she argued. “You are very important.”

“Me?” Sakura giggled. “I haven’t even decided what to do when I finish school.” She poked her index fingers together. “I haven’t figured out what to do about Syaoran.”

“Sakura,” Tomoyo said, “you have to do what makes you happy, because you can make that choice.”

“What about you, Tomoyo? You should follow your happiness, too.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be happy,” Tomoyo answered. “A place in the family business has always been intended for me. Yet even inside of that, I will have my freedom to pursue my own interests.”

“You mean the toy company, don’t you?” Sakura asked quietly.

“Toys are only part of our business,” Tomoyo said.

“It doesn’t seem right. You, and Syaoran. You both have your futures decided for you because of what someone else created.”

“Sakura, it’s really alright. I plan to make changes from the inside, when I have the chance. Now, as far as this afternoon: would you like to go to the exhibit at the art museum, or to the aquarium to see the penguins?”

Sakura began to answer before she remembered. “Oops! Yukito!” she exclaimed. “Tomoyo, I told Yukito that I would be free to meet him. Maybe we could go to the aquarium all together?”

Tomoyo smiled and shook her head. “I would be in the way of romance. Is this the Mr. Tsukishiro we met last night?”

Sakura made a sound of confirmation. “But are you sure, Tomoyo? It’s not really a date.”

“I’m sure. You will have an chance to talk to Mr. Tsukishiro more casually. I recommend the art museum. It’s open house tonight, so there will be a lovely lighted garden walk.” Her eyes twinkled. “Very romantic.”

“Tomoyo!” Sakura complained. “I have Syaoran!” She took her phone out of her purse.

“You said you hadn’t decided yet,” Tomoyo teased. “A little competition and comparison might be good!”

“Maybe I’ll decide that boys are too much trouble,” Sakura sighed. She twiddled her phone. She turned it on, but didn’t start the message to Yukito’s number.

Instead, she turned on the camera function and scooted close to Tomoyo. She raised the phone for a selfie. Tomoyo was always taking photos or videos of her, so it was time to turn the tables.

Tomoyo leaned in, already posing, and their cheeks were touched together when the camera clicked. They looked at the photo together. “Ooh, I’m making a weird face,” Sakura said.

“You always look cute, Sakura.”

“Mmm, maybe I will post it then,” Sakura answered. She uploaded the photo before she thought too much about it.

The notifications from Rika, Naoko, and two of Sakura’s teachers who liked the photo popped up while Sakura was typing out her short text to Yukito to let him know they could meet.

❧

In the investigative bureau office, where Nakuru lazily scrolled through social media pages, Spinel was jolted out of his reading by Nakuru’s yelp of delight. “She’s so cute!” She turned around in the swivel chair and pointed at the computer screen. “Look at that expression! Ugh! She’s adorable.”

☙

Yukito was sitting in his garden, doing nothing more than breathing in fresh air and thinking about Touya, when the message from Sakura came through. After their exchange, he went inside, changed into a clean button-up shirt and pressed slacks, and checked a bus schedule to make his route to the museum. He made sure he had enough money to pay for everything, since a gentleman always pays on a date, and he headed out.

Sakura had chosen to meet at an art museum, but when he arrived, the museum looked more like a festival, including a bazaar that covered the front lawn and walkup. He passed through rows of canopies, looking for Sakura. When he spotted her, she was in front of the first gallery windows, having a conversation with people that Yue recognized. Rei and Yuuki Tachibana could recognize him in turn, although they were, as an art smuggler and a forger respectively, minor in Clow’s organization.

Yukito wandered out to the side garden and watched event staff setting up chairs for a musical performance. It would be nothing larger than a quartet from the size of the stage. Yukito grinned when he saw that one of the crew was Touya Kinomoto. He watched Touya unspooling electrical cord until Touya looked up and saw him. Yukito walked over to Touya.

“Yo,” Touya greeted.

“I’m surprised to see you here,” Yukito said.

“Well, I got a last minute call for help. Since I’m not working otherwise, I figured, why not.” Touya glanced around. He fidgeted with the cord as if it needed more attention.

“I won’t keep you. From working, I mean,” Yukito said.

“I’ll be finished up here in a short while. Are you going to be around?” Touya asked. “I can find you when I’m done.”

Yukito laughed, the sound lively and musical. “I’d like that.”

“See you when I’m done here, then.”

“I’m going to get a program. I’ll see you later,” Yukito said in parting. He returned to the museum lobby and front desk area, where he picked up a brochure for the festivities. The bazaar would continue through the evening. Refreshments would be available for the garden show at twilight. A soloist would perform, and the grounds would be illuminated with artistic lighting.

Yukito went to find Sakura.

☙

She waited, wandering in the gallery, stopping for a conversation, and finally, sitting on a bench in front of a sculpture in the shape of a decorative shield and sword wrapped in binding chains. Sakura continued thinking about the patron that Tomoyo had conjectured into existence. One thing Sakura knew: her father would not have wanted that car for her.

Yet, why would someone wealthy enough to give such a gift notice her? It was too much like a TV drama to believe. What would someone who could gift a Corvette want from a nineteen year old university student?

It must have been the chained sculpture that brought the image to mind, an image that made Sakura flush with discomfort. She didn’t do that sort of thing.

Of course, those would be the exact thoughts Sakura was thinking when Yukito sat down beside her and said hello. Her answering hello was a stammered mess. She looked at the sculpture and quickly looked away, standing up so that they might move toward something less affecting.

Yukito commented on the sculpture, however, making her stay. “The artist,” he said, “wanted to name this work _‘Terre_ ’ for the earthen clay, and for the homophone in English. But he concluded that the sculpture represented, not the damp clay of its first form nor the bronze shaped in fire, but the water and air that had found their freedom.”

Sakura read the title card. It only said, “Untitled.”

“Why ‘tear’ in English?” Sakura asked. “A sword cuts. It doesn’t tear.”

“Tare. The weight of something before adding a burden.” Yukito laughed suddenly, and his seriousness vanished. “It was just something I read in magazine,” he said, “while at the dentist. Have you been to this museum before, Sakura?”

“Many times, with my friend Tomoyo,” Sakura answered.

“You will have to show me your favorite painting,” Yukito said.

They walked together, viewing artwork, for the next hour. Yukito didn’t talk to fill silence. He seemed comfortable simply looking around. Every now and then, he would ask her for her thoughts. He was interested in her opinions on any topic that arose. When the setting sun was leaving a violet sky, they extended their tour out to the garden paths.

Soft lights, spaced like firefly glow among the bare branches of the trees and the border shrubs, created a fairyland scene on a night too cold for real lightning bugs. Above the main path, a banner painted with silver stars covered a viewing area in case of a repeat of the recent light snowfall.

“Let’s walk along the paths,” Yukito suggested. On the stage behind them, the music show had begun. Sakura looked over her shoulder. A soloist with a sweet, clean voice started to sing. She wore a costume in art deco style, and wore her hair upswept with combs and rhinestone pins. At her feet, a sprite-like woman in a shawl patterned like feathered wings worked recording equipment. Sakura didn’t want to be anxious about making unintended noise. She accepted Yukito’s invitation.

The sound of the soloist carried into the garden, but Sakura and Yukito were nearly alone. They took a curving side path and discovered that they could sit on the cement bench there and be unnoticed by any other people walking in the garden. They could sit privately listening to the music and enjoying the atmosphere.

It was Yukito’s phone that broke the dreamy silence. Sakura was doubly glad that they had not stayed near the stage. Even the low volume chime would have started her giggling out of embarrassment, noise even worse than the phone’s notification sound.

“Sorry, sorry,” Yukito laughed. “Oh! It’s from To’ya. I’ll let him know we’re over here.” He stood up and stepped out of the secluded alcove.

“My brother is here?” Sakura asked.

Yukito was waving. Sakura leaned over and saw her brother strolling toward them.

“He said he would join us when he was done working,” Yukito answered.

Touya jogged up to Yukito. For a moment, it looked to Sakura like her brother was about to put his arm around his friend, but Touya noticed Sakura and he took a step toward her. “Hey, there’s a monster’s den back here,” he goaded.

Sakura growled with irritation for two seconds before turning it into a cough. Touya hadn’t teased her in a long while; she hadn’t been ready for it. She glared at him, no longer feeling angry for being poked in that old sore spot, just playing along. But really, what had almost happened between her brother and her date? She felt a little dazed by it.

“What are you up to?” Touya asked Sakura and Yukito collectively. He looked at the secluded corner and gave Sakura a hard look.

“You can hear the music well from here,” Yukito said.

“Really?” Touya asked. He sauntered over to the bench and sat down. “Nice.”

Yukito stepped over and sat down beside him. He was very focused on Touya, and Sakura all at once had the feeling of being in the way of something he wanted to say.

“Um,” Sakura excused herself, “I need to find a restroom. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She hurried off toward the galleries. Once she was out of sight, she slowed her pace. She wandered over to where food was being served and got herself a hot chocolate. The chill of the night had settled in.

She lingered near the stage and watched one of the performances. When she felt that she had given her brother and Yukito enough time to talk out whatever they didn’t want her to hear, she wandered back to join up with them again. If they had something that they wanted to do together, she could go home, or even try to meet up with Syaoran while her brother was occupied.

At first, Sakura thought that her brother and Yukito had gotten up to go walking and that the couple making out had taken advantage of the empty bench. In the low light, she only say the embraced figures but could not make them out clearly. Then her brain admitted what her eyes were seeing.

She darted back so that they wouldn’t see her. She stood, out of sight, stunned. She started blushing. She didn’t want to think of her brother being sexual, but she was astounded and happy for him having someone. Finally! Maybe he would ease up on chasing Syaoran away.

It was funny, she thought, that Yukito had wanted to spend time with her, but it made sense if he wanted to get to know her because he was fond of Touya. More than fond, she thought, determined not to visually recall the earlier scene.

She exhaled loudly. If she had known Yukito longer, it might have been heartbreaking to find out how off base she had been. As it was, they had only just met. Anyway, he couldn’t have broken her heart. It was safely in Syaoran’s care.

☙

****  
  
  



	9. Aerial

Even Yukito could to read Touya’s tension. Touya didn’t seem happy about Sakura leaving. “Is she here to meet with someone?” he asked.

Yukito shrugged. “Just with me,” he said.

“Oh? I thought you had run into each other here.”

Yukito laughed. “It was a date,” he confessed. “I thought it would be nice to do something together.”

Touya looked around. “Pretty romantic setting,” he commented. “Secluded.” There was a shadow of a question, maybe a hint of threat in his tone.

“Yes, I guess so,” Yukito replied. He slid closer to Touya on the bench. Their knees almost touched when Yukito turned toward him. Yukito dipped his chin down and looked up at Touya through his glasses. “I’m glad I didn’t have to wait until tomorrow to see you.”

Touya’s expression softened. “I didn’t expect to see you, here.”

“I guess we’re lucky,” Yukito replied. Touya hadn’t broken eye contact yet. Yukito felt warm, gazing into Touya’s eyes. Touya didn’t seem to notice that he had been leaning in toward Yukito until he had to shift where his hand was on the bench. Then, he straightened and glanced around.

When he turned back, Yukito slipped off his glasses and pretended they needed polishing. Holding his glasses and handkerchief in his lap, he blinked at Touya. “It’s gotten dark. My glasses don’t make much difference.”

“When I was a kid, I thought I would end up wearing glasses, because my dad did, and I wanted to be like him. But I guess I took after my mom,” Touya contemplated.

“Your mom passed away, didn’t she?” Yukito asked.

“I don’t want to talk about my mom,” Touya sighed. “No offense.”

“We don’t have to talk,” Yukito said. “I like being with you. That’s enough.”

Their voices had gradually become quieter, so that now they spoke to each other in a low murmur. “About that,” Touya said.

“Yes?”

Touya reached his arm around Yukito and pulled him close. He tipped his head down, putting his face close to Yukito’s. “I keep thinking about-- it,” he said.

“I haven’t stopped,” Yukito said. He tipped his head back when Touya kissed him, and he pushed himself a little closer. He put his glasses on bench. His arms were free to slide around and rub Touya’s back.

They lost track of time, sunk into each other, enjoying the exploration. When they stopped, Yukito realized that Sakura had sent him a message some time past, saying that she had run into friends and would get a ride home with Tomoyo. Touya expressed a guilty kind of irritation at that. He pointed out that they would both have an early morning, so he and Yukito said goodnight and reiterated their plan to get together for a run.

☙

Yue shed Yukito’s layers and showered. Afterward, he wrapped himself in a white feather blanket and sat by a window that had a sliver of view past the eves. The night was overcast. A streetlight painted a false moonglow against a backdrop of winter gray.

He dialed the number he knew by heart. The line whirred, ringing on the other end of the line three times. Yue ended the call. He waited, counting slowly to sixty. Again, he rang the line.

“Speak,” a deep, authoritative voice answered.

“I need you,” Yue said. They did not use names over phone lines.

“I miss you, too.” The voice had softened into a caress. “No business. Are you well?”

“I want to make love to someone. Let me come home.” Yue ran his fingers along the back of the cold phone, as if he could touch Clow through the lines.

Clow’s long sigh sounded through the connection. It was a sound, not of impatience or disappointment as Yue had feared, but of desire. “Would anyone see you leave?” Clow asked.

“No.”

“We’ll meet somewhere,” Clow said. “Go for a walk. I will send someone to pick you up.”

“I’m not dressed,” Yue enticed.

“Not at all?”

“Only a blanket…” Yue exhaled and let the blanket fall off his shoulders. “No, not even that.”

“You aren’t allowed a head start.” Clow’s voice had a hard edge that Yue knew well. “Do you have a long, warm coat?”

Yue knew what was coming. He couldn’t keep Clow waiting for an answer, so he replied still needing to take a deep breath. “A long down coat. Yes, I have one.”

“Then put it on, with boots. You may wear socks, a scarf. It’s a cold night. Cover your head. Nothing else.”

Yue listened to the commands of his beloved, murmured in Yue’s ear across the distance. He had heard him angry; he had heard him tease. He had heard Clow whisper in disappointment, shout in tenderness, and laugh out secrets of his heart. “My collar, too,” Yue answered. He ran the fingertips of his free hand over the hard chain.

“I won’t have you without it, you impudent creature,” Clow said. “Now go. I’m becoming impatient with your sass.”

Yue waited until Clow ended the call. The sound of the click was his dismissal. Getting up, Yue saw the reflection of his naked body on the window. He turned so that he could see his back.

The shape of his wings was difficult to see in the reflection, but he knew the scars were there, gracing his back with detailed feathers. Kero’s wings were a tattoo, simple blackwork without shading, but Yue’s decorative scars had been carved by Clow’s own hand, over years, becoming more finely detailed with every session.  In moonlight, they would softly glisten.

 

* * *

 

They left The Watery in a black car with tinted windows. Clow was languid to the point of sleepiness, after the massage. Yue’s massage had not been relaxing. It had been a new experience -- not a problem on its own, but it only added to Yue’s worry that he was not keeping Clow’s interest. They were Julian’s worries. If Clow didn’t want him, he would go back to being Julian, as if the last few hours had not been for keeping. Since Kero had the job, he couldn’t count it as a loss.

On the car ride, Yue continually wondered if the next time they turned a corner, he would recognize his neighborhood and know for certain that he was being taken home. Clow didn’t give him any special attention. Clow spoke to the driver on the other side of the dividing glass more often than to Yue. Yue sat beside Clow and kept his eyes down, not wanting to look up and see Clow yawning.

“Hungry?” Clow asked without preamble.

Yue shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t stop somewhere?” Clow began to lean forward to get his driver’s attention.

“I don’t need to eat,” Yue answered.

Clow put his hand on Yue’s thigh. “You need to keep up your strength,” he advised. “You’ll need the energy.”

Yue dared to look up. What Clow saw in his face made Clow laugh. Clow raised his hand from Yue’s thigh and curled his palm against Yue’s cheek. His fingertips traced the shape of Yue’s earlobe.

“Such a worried look,” Clow said. “Is it sinking in yet?” he asked. Streetlight reflections played over the lenses of his glasses. “I will do however I am inclined.”

“I was afraid you were bored with me,” Yue admitted.

“Bored!” Clow laughed. His hand moved away from Yue’s face. “Don’t forget so easily that you owe me payment, on my terms, for your little stunt.” He continued grinning. “What did you want? A conquest?”

His hand slid down across Yue’s chest and cupped Yue’s crotch with ownership, making Yue’s breath catch. Clow pushed his other hand beneath Yue’s shirt. With the same rough aggression, he pressed his mouth against Yue’s. He pinned him against the seat. Before he pulled his mouth away, he held Yue’s lower lip between his teeth and bit with just enough intent for Yue to taste blood.

Clow tossed his head, but the loose strands of hair around his face fell back as they were when he settled back against the seat. He ran his tongue over his lip. He closed his eyes a moment, as if savoring the flavor of Yue’s bloodied lip. “What frightens you?” he asked.

“You frighten me,” Yue answered. His heart beat as if he had been running.

“I don’t think you are,” Clow answered.

“Why?”

“Because, if you were afraid of me, you wouldn’t be desperate to go to bed with me.”

“Can’t I be both?” Yue asked.

Clow chuckled. “You still think this is a card game. You ante with your purity, then play to be defeated.”

Yue averted his eyes. It was true. He wanted someone magnificent to be his first, and he was desperate to be rid of his virginity. “What should I do?”

“Take me seriously. Believe that I am sincere.” Clow sprawled in his seat, knees comfortably apart, head tipped back, and one arm stretched over the seatback. He closed his eyes. “I can take you, but I would rather that you gave yourself to me.”

“I want to,” Yue said.

“Honesty,” Clow commanded.

Yue considered how to put his desire into words. “I can’t be weak,” he said, thinking about how he and Kero had gotten by since Kero had let him move in with him. “My brother and I balance each other. If I couldn’t fight beside him, he’d be better without me. So I can’t be weak.” He wet his mouth. “Yet I am. Weak.” He didn’t like talking so much. He wasn’t good with speaking his thoughts.

“That’s not what I see,” Clow said. “You are stronger than you think.” He studied Yue. “You simply need to be tested. Then you will see that for yourself.” A smile of mischief curled his lips. “I have something in mind, for you,” he said.

The car came to a stop, and Clow reached to pat Yue on the leg. “We’re here.”

Their destination was a secured building, a tall tower in black glass and dark stone. They rode up an elevator, in silence, to a corner unit overlooking the lights of the city. Clow stripped his suit coat, shoes, socks, and watch as soon as they were through the door. He tossed his watch, keys, phone, and other contents of his pockets into the lap of an arbitrary piece of furniture. Yue followed suit, shedding his coat and hanging it in the entry closet and leaving his shoes near the front door.

Clow passed through the open kitchen, poured two glasses from a decanter, and circled back to Yue. He put one of the glasses of clear liquid into Yue’s hands. “Drink,” he said. He raised his glass in salute and drained the contents.

The contents didn’t smell like alcohol. He put the edge to his mouth and tasted… spring water. “Is this your home?” he asked.

“No,” Clow said. He leaned against a glass cabinet. “Sit.”

Yue went to a low ottoman nearest to Clow. He sat, putting himself nearly at Clow’s feet, and was rewarded with a small smile.

“Remove your shirt.” Clow opened a drawer in the cabinet and lifted out a bamboo tray filled with pieces of blue and white ceramic while watching Yue undress. He set the tray down on a narrow end table.

Yue shivered as Clow’s hand passed under his hair and across the smooth contours of Yue’s back. With his thumb, Clow traced the vertebrae of Yue’s spine. As Clow stood behind Yue, his hand curved over Yue’s ribs, dipped lower, and caressed the border of naked skin and clothing.

“More than half a dozen countries still use judicial corporal punishment,” Clow said, “for crimes such as petty theft.” Clow unbuckled his belt and slipped it from its loops.

“My ancestors, in both hemispheres, certainly did historically. England was crude, cruel and blatant with punishments that maimed. China began with disfigurement as well -- cut off fingers, cut off noses -- until judicial punishment refined with one of the cruelest eras, the Ming.”

Yue closed his eyes.

“Caning became standard,” Clow said.

Yue kept his body still, waiting for an anticipated sting. When none came, he raised his eyelashes and chanced a peek at Clow. Clow’s belt lay in a discarded coil across the arm of the couch. Clow stood over the tray of ceramic shards. His fingers trailed through the tray of shattered porcelain.

“I have something better in mind for you,” Clow said, repeating his earlier statement.

He rubbed his thumb across the blue glaze of a piece curved like a crescent moon.

“You want to hurt me,” Yue said. If the ceramic was Ming era, it had value even broken. Yue guessed that Clow had not retained the pieces to attempt repair. “Will those edges cut?” He was amazed at how quiet and calm he sounded aloud.

Clow answered, “I _am_ going to hurt you.” His smile was seductive. “You’ve wanted me to hurt you since your hand closed around… my property,” he said. “Am I wrong?”

Yue shook his head, once. “No.”

Clow made a sound in his throat, as someone does when tasting a delicious, favorite thing. He approached Yue and dropped the sharp curve of broken pottery into Yue’s lap. “I expect you to fight me,” he murmured.

Yue put the shard into his palm. A little pressure, and the vitreous edges would draw blood. “Yes,” he said.

“Excellent.” Clow adjusted his suit pants, creating slack at the knees, as he sat down beside Yue. “However, first: contract with me.”

“What kind of contract?” Yue asked.

“Verbal. Ah, no -- you are concerned. Bad movies have given you the wrong idea. Entirely too much commitment when we have only just met.” He winked. The wink failed to put Yue at ease. “I am speaking of a business contract, as your brother Kero has already accepted. Work for me.”

“Work for you?” Yue echoed.

“You said, yourself, that you and your brother make a balanced team. I see no advantage to hiring half a team, when I can have both. Do you accept? Your skills will be put to the best use, and my organization fosters upward mobility. The contract is entirely binding, however, and I do need you to make a decision now.”

“If I don’t agree, what would happen to me after I leave?” Yue asked.

Clow laughed. “I really can’t say. My ability to foresee only indicates that you would not have much of a future.”

Yue knew he would be a fool not to take the job, regardless of any threat inherent in Clow’s answer. He had wanted one for Kero, and he had wanted something else from Clow for himself, but he had not anticipated an offer of employment. More surprising, it wasn’t an offer to prostitute himself on an ongoing basis. “I accept,” he said.

“Well, now that that business has concluded,” Clow started. He put his hand around Yue’s hand, the one that held the broken pottery. He closed his hand, slowly making Yue close his hand on the sharp piece. “It is time for pleasure.”

❧

They did not sleep in the same bed that night. Just as well, because Yue almost could not rise, late the next morning when he woke in the guest room. He smelled faintly of the antiseptic that Clow had used, afterward, to clean Yue’s wounds. Most, no more than deep scratches, had closed over naturally. Only a few had required bandaging.

The sex had been much more than Yue had imagined. Clow had hurt him deliberately, with the precision of experience, so that even Yue’s painful deflowering had been almost gentle. Clow eased him into the experience after Yue, on his back, succumbed to the greater force. One leg bent against Clow’s shoulder, the other pinned down between Clow’s legs, Yue had laid on his back, gripped the bedcovers, and given himself over to a man potent enough to take him.

He was sure Clow had been satisfied. Yue had a long bruise from pectoral to deltoid from being slammed into a door frame with Clow twisting Yue’s arm behind his back. Yue had lean muscle; he was more ready for running than sparring. Clow was in excellent shape, with more upper body tone than visually apparent when dressed. After being overcome, Yue enjoyed watching the toned body that Clow’s fine clothes covered.

On the nightstand beside the bed in which Yue had slept, the little piece of Ming pottery rested on a folded handkerchief. Although washed, the edge of the break was now the red-brown of old blood. Yue touched it, but did not take it. The blood had been his, but now everything, pottery and Yue, belonged to Clow.

 

* * *

 

Yue walked through the placid neighborhoods of Tomoeda, feeling the cold invade the inadequate protection of only a coat. It turned his skin to ice. He shivered, not from cold but from the anticipation of Clow’s warm touch, which would feel molten in contrast.

He paused near the play park and the woods to look up at the sky for any trace of the moon behind the clouds. At the sound of a car motor, he continued walking, slowly. When the black car pulled up beside him, he opened the back passenger side door and got in.

☙

 


	10. Touya and Memories of His Mother

Yue exhausted himself with Clow. Clow seemed amused with Yue’s mood and humored him. Yue took advantage of that magnificence, making love to his master with a hungry ferocity. He cuddled up to Clow, holding onto him and feeling safe, after they were both satisfied.

The house was one Clow used often, so the bedding was a cloud of comfort. The familiar surroundings helped Yue feel more at ease. Some of his clothes even hung in the closets.

Clow stroked Yue’s hair. He brushed the wispy bangs aside with the tip of a finger, then placed a kiss on Yue’s forehead. “Your hair hasn’t been so short in years,” he murmured.

“Yukito would wear it short,” Yue said. He rubbed his cheek against Clow’s chest. He sighed. “I hate being someone else. Being yours is all I want.”

“You’re doing what I want,” Clow answered. His fingers found one of Yue’s bruises and caressed the purpled mark. “How is your progress?”

Unbidden, the memory of the feel of Touya’s tongue came to Yue’s mind. Yue was glad his face was turned away from Clow. “Business?” he asked.

“Business,” Clow confirmed. “I must send you back within the hour.”

“You won’t let me sleep with you?” Yue asked.

“The temptation to keep you,” Clow began to press kisses on Yue, sliding down Yue’s body while simultaneously pushing Yue onto his back, “is immense.” He wrapped his hands around Yue’s wrists and drew them up and pressed them beside Yue’s head. He put a soft kiss on Yue’s mouth. “You have a deadline,” he said. “Give me your report.” Although he would not be ready for another round yet, Clow slid his knee up between Yue’s legs.

Being pinned should have made it impossible to lie. “Have you spoken to Kerberos?” Yue asked. It was an evasion, perhaps a misdirection, and yet he was able to look into Clow’s eyes. How? He could only think that the ache of being given away made the deception possible. “Your plan is going as you intended.”

“Somewhat accelerated, Kerberos admits,” Clow mused. “Sakura is clever. Do you like her?”

“She has a kind manner,” Yue said. “She counts me among friends, already.”

Clow smiled. Yue wanted to see some shadow of regret, or perhaps jealousy, tone the expression of content. He thought he saw evidence of sadness in Clow’s eyes.

“Good,” Clow said. “Well begun.” He released Yue’s wrists and sat back on the bed. “You should get dressed, now. I seem to be too tired to hold our stolen moment much longer. The hourglass must be turned when the sands run out.”

Yue climbed out of the soft bed. He had arrived to their rendezvous essentially naked. He went to the closet and found a sheer, sleeveless top and white leather pants. Yue searched for footwear he could trade for the fleeced winter boots.

Clow’s gaze followed him. “Unusual choice of attire for your persona,” he commented.

“I detest Yukito’s clothing,” Yue admitted. To create a persona that appeared younger, with a less defined physique, Yukito’s clothing was off-the-rack, loose clothing with baggy, undefined lines. He wore soft, earthy covers like taupe, fawn, and blue-grey. “Even Julian had more style.”

“Julian?” Clow’s voice took an odd note. “Yue, it has been eight years since you left that name behind.”

Yue thought about the skinny, streetwise teen that he had once been. Age, training, and purpose had defined Yue’s form. Yukito took that away from him.

“I am still your weishi,” Yue said.

Yue gathered Yukito’s coat, cap, and boots. He draped the scarf, a horrible acrylic knit, over his shoulders. “Must I go?” he asked.

Clow sprawled back on the tumbled bedcovers. “Go.”

Yue let himself out of the bedroom. He went downstairs, where Clow’s driver waited. At the sight of Yue, the driver stood up and led the way to the car. He opened the back door for Yue, and Yue again stepped into the non-descript car.

On the drive back to Tomoeda, Yue stared at the night, thinking. He had never lied to Clow before. He wondered about not telling Clow about Touya. Yukito was supposed to have romanced Sakura, and Yukito was still Yue, but Yue without a collar, Yue without the promise and protection that came from belonging to Clow. Yue existed because of Clow. Without Clow, what, no, who was he? He was Yukito Tsukishiro, and Yukito gravitated to Touya.

Yue could remain close to Sakura through a relationship with her brother. That was Yue’s plan, though not Clow’s plan. What that would mean when Sakura inherited Clow’s power, Yue did not want to guess at. He did not have Clow’s foresight; he wouldn’t plan so far ahead.

As the car traveled past the Kinomoto house on its way to leaving Yue at Yukito’s, Yue noticed the light on in an upper window. He tried to see whose room it might be, but he could not catch details before the car moved beyond the view.

❧

Sakura hadn’t come home. She was staying over the night with the Daidoujis, which was not unusual. They didn’t have much of a home life in their own home, with how often their father was away. Touya didn’t begrudge his sister her escape. Still, when no one was home but Touya, he had a hard time getting to sleep. Then a few hours later, he would wake up well before the sun, unable to return to sleep, no matter how tired he felt. This night, he had Yukito Tsukishiro contributing to his restlessness, too.

The thought that he could have had Yukito come home with him crossed his mind more than once. What was happening between them, though, was already happening fast enough. Maybe it had to be fast, so that he wouldn’t think too much before experiencing it.

Touya put his inability to sleep to use. First, he stripped his bed and put a fresh set of sheets on it, including fresh pillowcases. He knew from experience that once he was tired enough, clean sheets would help him to knock off faster. He opened the room’s window for fresh air. While the cold air blew in, he stripped out of his clothes and threw himself through a shower.

He found some flannel pajama pants and put them on, along with a clean black T-shirt. While his bedroom continued to air out, he left his room, door shut to prevent the cold night from flowing into the rest of the house, and headed to his father’s upstairs office. The door was locked with an electronic key code. Touya punched in the code, wondering if his father was ever going to change it from the digits of his mother’s birthday.

The laptop was with Fujitaka. The home computer, an ancient model in beige plastic, was more of an archive. When Touya could get into it unobserved, he spent as long as he could picking through a labyrinth of files, none of which had recognizable names or order. He guess that there was some kind of key that would reveal a directory to make sense of what was stored on the hard drives, but he had yet to find the it. Each of the files was password protected and was encrypted, so Touya’s progress had been slow. Most often, he found old photographs of Nadeshiko, his mother. Other files appeared to be financial documents or, at least, accounting program files judging by the file type.

He didn’t copy files off the old computer and view them on his own computer because even if he could still find the old media it used, his recent vintage PC would not be able to read the files. Instead, Touya noted file names, descriptions, and locations by hand on a legal pad. He took photos of the computer screen with a digital camera. After his eyes began to blur, he powered the old computer down.

He checked the room over to see if anything looked out of place due to his presence. Then he turned off the room light, checked to make sure the door would lock, and left. He went back to his room, shut the window, and went down to the TV room to watch something until his room warmed up again. Or until he fell asleep on the sectional.

Touya flipped through the stations without giving much attention to the channels. Remote in one hand, he advanced through the photos on the camera with the other hand. After a while, the images on the camera screen took his attention completely away from the TV screen. He set the remote down. The TV remained on a cartoon station playing late night programming.

There was an answer buried somewhere among the old files, Touya believed. At age ten, he had stood silently at his mother’s funeral and stood witness over a sealed coffin, only his father and three-year-old Sakura beside him. Sixteen years later, his still didn’t accept that his mother was gone, but his reasons had changed.

When he had dated Kaho, she worked as a civil servant. He thought it had been something boring and clerical, but in retrospect, he felt that she had made an effort to give him that impression without revealing any details of her work. In an idle conversation about Masaki Amamiya before she realized that Touya’s family connected to him, she let it slip that he had dodged indictment in spite of a relative ready to testify against him. Amamiya had been let off the hook because of the shadow of a bigger fish.

On another occasion, not long before they had broken up and Kaho had disappeared off Touya’s map, Kaho had referred to Touya’s mother in the present tense.

And somehow, it hadn’t been a complete shock when the first message from Nadeshiko, who was supposed to have been deceased a dozen years by then, appeared on his computer screen one night. No, that simple request to video chat had been like a message from heaven. There had been other times, since, when Nadeshiko had appeared. She could never stay on long, and she didn’t explain anything. Touya never told anyone else. They would say he was dreaming, he was seeing ghosts, he had lost his rationality.

The realization that his mother was alive and in hiding started an avalanche of questions. His problem was that he didn’t know which questions to ask. The trail to an answer was in those old files, in the pattern of his father’s business trips, and even in the details of his mother’s hiding. It was criminal activity, it was Masaki Amamiya, and it was something to do with that other, unseen figure behind him. At first he had tried to get someone to help. When no one helped, when he realized that he was on his own, he withdrew into himself. Around then, he dropped out of school, lost his job, lost his apartment, and moved back home.

Sometimes, a panic would come over him that his mother had tried contact him again when he had not been at his computer. He would stay in his room until he lost track of the day, eating -- if he realized that he felt hungry -- whatever snacks he had stashed away during some earlier time of clarity. He still at times jolted awake at a sound that, in his dream, pinged like a chat notification.

❧

He woke up when the front door opened and closed. He heard footsteps in the hallway, and then Sakura came into the room. He had fallen asleep with the TV on. Sakura searched for the remote and turned the TV off.

“Yukito is here,” she whispered.

“Is it that late?” Touya asked. He saw Sakura note the camera and stood up to move her attention away.

“Do you want me to tell him…?” Sakura started to ask.

Touya interrupted, “No. No, I’ll -- just let him know I need a couple of minutes.”

His sister looked at him with a crafty expression on her face. “Just think about all the times you teased me for waking up late when I was little. Maybe I should let him see you with bedhead. And pillow marks on your face.”

Touya narrowed his eyes.

Sakura smiled. “I’ll have him wait for you in the kitchen.” Her step had a bounce to it as she left to return to their guest.

Touya dashed upstairs with unexpected energy. In a hurry, he changed into running clothes and ran a comb through his hair. He grabbed his running shoes. He bumped the screen of his PC while sitting on his desk, putting on socks. When the screen awoke, he saw the notification he had missed.

He stood up from the desk. He slumped into the desk chair. He was still sitting there, staring at the missed contact attempt from his mother, when Sakura called his name through the bedroom door. He bolted up from the chair and covered the distance to his door in four strides. He pulled open the door and jumped out, making his sister hop back out of his way. He closed the door behind himself.

He started toward the downstairs, and Sakura followed after him.

“Are you alright?” she called after him.

He shrugged but didn’t look back at her. “Fine,” he answered. “We shouldn’t keep Yuki waiting by himself.”

Sakura shook her head. “They’re having waffles,” she said. “Will you talk to me, big brother? You look like you’ve seen… you look upset.”

“Who else is downstairs?” Touya asked.

“Kero is. He’s a, well, he works for us. He’s helping me with a project.”

On the staircase, Touya cast a look down toward the level below. “Do they know each other?”

“Um, no, why would they?” Sakura frowned. “Stop for a minute. Just… stop.” She looked at him with an earnestness that made him feel guilty. Then she stepped close and put her arms around him in a light hug.

He hugged Sakura back, tighter. “Everything’s OK,” he lied.

Sakura shook her head. “You don’t have to protect me, Touya,” she said. “I’m not twelve.” She drew away from him. “I-- I don’t want us to have secrets from each other.” She looked down at her feet. “I like Yukito. If-- if he is important to you, that’s a good thing.”

“Are you blushing right now?” Touya asked, teasing her out of reflex.

“You should be the one blushing!” Sakura protested in a whisper. She colored a deeper hue of pink.

Touya felt that he was. He was wondering how his spacey sister had picked up on the sparks between him and Yukito. He wondered if Yukito had said something, then dismissed it as unlikely.

“So, is he?” Sakura asked, finally.

“Gay? Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” Touya answered, feeling a combination of embarrassment and relief.

Sakura looked shocked. “Touya! I meant, is he important to you!” She giggled with released tension.

“I’m still figuring that part out,” Touya replied. He crossed his arms. “Shouldn’t we join them?” He tuned on the stair and started down.

❧

 

****  
  
  
  


 

 

****  
  
  



	11. Power Shift

Instead of bringing Sakura a latte this morning, Kerberos planned to suggest stopping for coffee together. She would have a harder time putting him off, that way. Yue, or rather Yukito, stood at the front door. Sakura held the door and invited him in.

Kerberos bounded up the stairs with a boisterous, “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Yukito replied, competing for the sunniest smile.

Kerberos almost forgot not to laugh. He was out of practice with working confidence scams where his brother played such a role. That Yukito looked genuinely sweet and innocent, things that Yue was not and never had been, tweaked Kerberos’ sense of humor.

Sakura, standing with the door open for Yukito, looked uncomfortable. She couldn’t invite Yukito in and keep Kerberos out. “Good morning, Kero,” she said.

“Hey, Sakura,” Kerberos started. He then realized that he couldn’t suggest coffee with Yukito just arrived. “Um, you have company already…” he muttered.

“Come in, Kero.” She sounded resigned. She led the way, and her guests followed.

“I’m Yukito,” Yue said, offering a hand in greeting to Kerberos.

“Kero,” Kerberos returned. He took his brother’s hand in his own and shook it once.

Sakura directed her guests to the breakfast nook. “Yukito, can I get you some breakfast while you’re waiting?” She included Kerberos. “Would you like coffee or tea? Or some juice?”

“Breakfast would be great! I’ll take coffee.” Kerberos answered for both of them. “Waffles, maybe?” He sat down at the table to wait.

Yukito smiled again and said, “Anything is fine.”

“I think we have some frozen waffles,” Sakura said, frowning with uncertainty.

“Can I help in any way?” Yukito asked.

Sakura giggled and waved him back from the kitchen. “No, you’re a guest! Make yourself at home. You too, Kero,” she added in afterthought before disappearing behind the kitchen wall.

Kerberos pointed to the chair across from him. “Have a seat,” he invited.

Yukito pulled the chair out. “I’m waiting for Toya,” he said. “He shouldn’t be too long, Sakura said.”

“Oh? What are you up to?” Kerberos relaxed with the conversation.

“We’re workout buddies,” Yukito answered brightly.

“Great, great,” Kerberos answered. “Heading to the gym?” He knew how Yue was in a sparring match. The brothers had fought often enough, both on the mat and on the street. He wondered how that would jibe with Yue’s disguise.

“We’re going for a run,” Yukito supplied. “As long as the weather stays clear.”

Hearing Sakura coming back, Kerberos kept up the inane small talk. “Think it might snow again?”

Sakura crossed the room and carefully placed a tray -- holding sugar bowl, creamer, jam jar, and butter keeper -- onto the table. She served French press coffee into dainty cups for Yukito, Kerberos, and herself. “Do you take sugar and milk, Yukito?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Yukito answered. He added them to his coffee until it turned white. “This is lovely, Sakura.”

Kerberos notice the slight flush of pink at Sakura’s ears, and the way she concentrated on stirring in milk and sugar into her coffee. Yue had gotten a head start over Kerberos, but he had still worked fast, if Sakura was already reacting to his charm. Kerberos slurped at his tiny cup to cover up his irritation. He couldn’t decide if he was irritated at Sakura for taking the bait or irritated at Yue for advancing Clow’s twisted plan. Clow took things too far with Yue. It was their thing, but Kerberos didn’t like it.

A timer chime from the kitchen had Sakura jumping out of her chair. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she hurried away.

Yue leaned over and transferred the contents of his cup into Kerberos’ cup. Kerberos knocked it back and added more from the press to both his and Yue’s cup. He poured only enough into Yue’s to discourage Sakura from refilling it.

Sakura returned with two plates, both stacked with round Belgian waffles. “If you would like more, I can put more in the toaster,” she offered. She hesitated to sit down with them. “You know, I think I’d better check on what’s keeping Touya,” she said.

“Waiting is no trouble,” Yukito assured.

“He said he only needed a few minutes,” Sakura said. “I’ll be right back. Please go ahead and eat. And help yourself to the kitchen if you need anything,” she added as she trotted out of the room.

Kerberos looked at Yukito’s plate. “You gonna eat that?” he asked.

“You know I won’t,” Yue replied quietly. He picked up the plate and slid the food over to his brother.

Kerberos stabbed a forkful and unloaded the stacked waffle pieces into his mouth. Pouring syrup over the double serving, he said, “You’re missing out. These are legit.”

“So you’re going by Kero?” Yue asked. “What happened?”

Kerberos scowled. “It was stupid cover name. Anyway, if I get recognized with Sakura, it’ll cause less of a problem. I’ve gotta take her around, remember? Some of the small fry won’t have enough sense to keep their mouths shut when they see The Beast coming.” He slathered more butter on his breakfast. “Sakura’s gonna be a good boss,” he mused.

“That’s my call, isn’t it?” Yue replied.

“Come on,” Kerberos argued, “you know it’s a done deal. You’re not going to go against Clow.” He saw the currents of mixed feeling ripple across Yue’s expression. “You’re not. Are you?”

“What if something happens that Clow didn’t intend?” Yue asked in a murmur.

“Hey, we’re problem solvers,” Kero laughed. “We can come up with something. What’s going on?”

“It’s not important,” Yue answered. “I can… deal with it.”

“We’re always a team,” Kero said. “Tell me what’s up and I’ll come at it from the other side.”

“Watch out for Syaoran Li,” Yue said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. If Sakura had walked in at that moment, she would have seen a stranger sitting in Yukito’s place. She wouldn’t, because Kero was keeping an ear out for her coming back.

“Trouble from Hong Kong?” Kerberos asked. Yelan Li always had an eye on Clow’s territory.

Yue shook his head. “I think it’s personal with Sakura. Toya is on a short fuse when it comes to Syaoran.” He straightened his posture. He relaxed his shoulders. “I don’t know details yet. Maybe you can get them from her.” The soft look of Yukito returned. He straightened his glasses.

“With that eye color,” Kerberos said, “we look more related. You still look like a snow bunny, though. Throwback DNA.”

“Yukito passes. Where are you staying, Kero?” Yue asked.

“I’ve got an apartment across town. What about you?”

“Nearby. I’m at a house. My grandparents’,” he finished with a sardonic expression. He gave Kerberos the cross streets. “Blue tile roof.”

“I’ll come by when things are quiet. We can do more as a team than each on our own. We should share intel.” He held his fist out for Yue to bump.

Yue -- not Yukito -- smiled and met the fist with his own. Then Yue withdrew, and it was Yukito again sitting across from Kerberos. Kerberos made out the sounds of company a fraction of a second later.

Touya Kinomoto entered with Sakura beside him. “I’m ready to go, Yuki,” Touya said.

“Don’t you want some breakfast, big brother?” Sakura asked. She leaned on his arm for a momentary cuddle. Touya tousled her hair.

“I’ll eat after.” Touya stepped toward the table and offered a hand to Kerberos. “Are you Kero? I’m Touya,” he said.

Kerberos shook his hand. Touya’s grip was solid, respectable. His eyes had a tint of red around them, like evidence of a hard night, but maybe he just had a cold or something. Kerberos had to notice, because Touya examined him with a glare of routine suspicion.

“You’re working on a project with Sakura?” Touya asked.

Sakura cut in, “It’s just something to help Dad.”

Touya gave Sakura a look that spoke volumes on sibling dynamics. Kerberos wondered if his own version of the look looked like that with Yue. Sakura squirmed under the brotherly gaze.

She pouted. “I messed up, OK? Kero helped me fix most of it, and we’re almost finished… um, fixing it.”

“What happened?” Touya asked, including Kerberos in his examination.

Sakura confessed, more easily than Kerberos expected she would. “There was a problem with the freight. The records got scrambled, and a lot of shipments got mixed up.”

“Is that it?” Touya asked.

“Well, no,” Sakura admitted. “Some things didn’t make sense when I started tracking the paperwork. We need to visit some of the warehouses and find out what’s going on.” She served herself the last of the coffee and sipped at her cup. “We should talk about this privately,” she said to Touya after an apologetic glance toward their guests.

Kerberos raised his hands in a gesture of acquiescence. “It’s Kinomoto business,” he agreed. “I’m just here to back you up, Sakura.”

Yue interjected. “Toya, I can go. We can do something together later.” He got Touya’s attention. Touya backed off his questions.

He shifted his weight back onto his heels. “No, we can go,” he said. “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.”

“I was early,” Yukito answered. He stood up. “Sakura, thank you for breakfast.”

“You’re welcome,” Sakura replied in a lilting voice. She looked from Yukito to Touya and back again.

Touya started pulling Yukito by the arm toward the door. “We’re going,” he said in goodbye. “Sakura, you’re going to be late to school.” Touya and Yukito exited through the kitchen side door.

Sakura checked the time. “I have to go, Kero, but it’s Friday so I only have one class, then lab until noon. Can we take care of business after lunch?”

“You can’t put this off, Sakura,” Kerberos started. “Your Dad won’t be out of town for long.”

“I have school, Kero. It’s important to me. But I promise,” she said, “I’ll do what I can this afternoon and spend all weekend on this. Is that fair?” She considered. “That is, do you mind working on the weekend like that?”

“Hey, I said I would do this with you,” Kerberos defended.

“Alright. I really appreciate it.” She gave him a spontaneous hug. She looked at the time again. “Maybe we could check one place before my class starts. Can we do it fast? I just have to grab my school bag.”

Kerberos stood up and followed her. “Let’s go!” he said as he continued following her upstairs. “If you want to be fast, Sakura--” he started.

Sakura made a stubborn face. “Kero…”

“A car is the fastest way,” Kerberos finished. “Use the car, Sakura. It’s yours. The title is in your name, right?” He realized that he had followed her into the family-only area of the house and paused in the hallway, wavering over heading back down the stairs to make up for his imposition.

Sakura appeared puzzled by his reticence and unbothered by his presence on the upper floor. She went into her room and came back out with her bag. She dug through her bag. As she walked past Kerberos toward the stairs, she held up the keys on the parrot head key fob for him to see.

❧

“Here,” Kerberos said. “Park anywhere.” He indicated a littered street lined with the blocky faces of ugly, run down buildings. The brightest thing on the block was the facade of a small grocery store. It had a clean awning and front sidewalk that looked recently swept. In the clear windows, brightly colored movies posters and household knick-knacks in neon plastic added an optimistic gaudy splendor to an otherwise gray neighborhood.

Sakura checked the address in her notes. “This isn’t right,” she said. “I mean, the address is right, but this is a residential neighborhood.” She put the car in park. “I didn’t realize we had places that looked like this in Tomoeda.”

“It’s a rough neighborhood, for sure,” Kerberos answered.

She looked around with contemplation as she got out of the car. “Let’s ask at the store,” she suggested.

Kerberos followed her into the store, where electronic twin bells announced their entrance. Perusing a rack of foreign movies, he kept an eye on Sakura’s Corvette while Sakura went up to the counter. The shop held a mishmash of packaged and fresh food, T-shirts, house shoes, kitchenware, and cheap art. A shelf with tourist items also held prayer beads and yin-yang decorated jewelry, but in the bracket above the cash register, elephant-headed Ganesh kept a benevolent eye on the merchant and her customers.

Sakura introduced herself to the shop owner. They talked together for a few minutes, and then Sakura returned to Kerberos. “This address is the clubhouse of a street gang,” she informed him, clearly concerned about the revelation. “They give the owner here trouble sometimes, but she says it’s mostly teens up to mischief, needing attention.”

They walked back out of the store together and stood on the sidewalk by Sakura’s pink convertible. “Kero, I don’t know why we would be doing business with a gang,” she said. “I want to check this back at the company again, first. If I have to, I’ll come back in the afternoon.”

“You worried about talking to some street toughs?” Kerberos asked.

Sakura gave some thought before she answered. “If we’re really doing business with them, then there have to be agreements in place. I feel pretty safe with you here with me, but it wouldn’t be smart to charge in without more thought.”

Kerberos nodded in approval. “The power here will try to test your negotiation strength, if it comes to that. Good idea to find out what you can ahead of time and prepare.”

“I mean, all I really have to do is introduce myself and see where we stand,” she considered. “But I still want to make sure this isn’t a mistake.” She walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in. Kerberos took the passenger seat. She started the engine. “I told my brother that I don’t want to keep secrets from him, either,” she continued as she pulled a U-turn and turned her direction toward the university district.

“You’re going to get big brother involved?” Kerberos asked. That wasn’t according to plan.

“Touya might not want to work at the company, but I’m not going to exclude him from what I find,” she said. “If Dad hasn’t been covering things up, then suspicious business is happening that he doesn’t know about.” She sped up and changed lanes to pass around the other cars. Her hair fluttered around her head in the passing air currents. She had to raise her voice a little to be heard. “I’m going to be upfront with Touya, and he’s going to be upfront with me. And when Dad gets back, we’re going to figure this out as a family. That’s the way we should have been from the beginning.”

❧

**  
**


	12. Silent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touya and Yuki, Yue and Clow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... am not sure how to trigger warn on this one. #abuse

Touya was in terrible shape, he realized. By the time he and Yukito jogged down to the soccer field, Touya could feel how much his years of inactivity had taken away from the fitness he had taken for granted in high school. His lungs burned and his pulse hammered in his ears. Sweat poured down his face and into his soaked collar. Yukito ran with ease, and it was obvious to Touya that Yukito held back his pace so that Touya could keep up.

In the second mile, he desperately fought his exhaustion out of pride. Yukito made it more painful when he stopped suddenly, just before the street sloped upward with a slight hill.

"Shoelace," Yukito said. He crouched down to fiddle with his shoe.

Touya stopped, bent over, and breathed like a drowning man. His perspiration flowed past his eyebrows and down his nose, dripping like tears onto the sidewalk. It was something of a relief to him that his sweat would hide any tears of shame if it came to that. He wiped his sleeve across his face.

Yukito stood up with and stretched his back. "Why don't we walk a bit," he suggested. "I could use a stretch."

Touya nodded wordless agreement. He still couldn't bring himself to openly admit that he didn't even have the breath for a reply. Yukito smiled at him like it didn't matter that they both knew Touya couldn't run another step. Touya's legs felt so wobbly from exertion that he almost couldn't walk.

He started moving. The air of every breath scorched his lungs. He tried to hide the roughness of his breathing.

Yukito strolled beside him. "I love the morning," he said. "It's cold, so almost everyone is indoors, but I can feel that the neighborhood is awake. People are connecting. That's good."

It didn't sound true. Or, it did, but like a layer of truth on top of unspoken feeling. Touya felt that a lot from Yukito. Yuki had a sincere, open manner, but at the same time, his upbeat personality seemed to hide a deeper self. Touya didn't think anyone else would see it. "Tell me about yourself," Touya asked.

Yukito smiled so that his lips parted a little, showing a flash of teeth. "To-ya," he protested, as if shy, the way he said Touya's name becoming more apparent.

"Come on. You showed up in my life almost out of nowhere," Touya said. "Tell me something about yourself."

"Well," Yukito said as he strolled, "I live in my grandparents house, right now. They are traveling for a long trip. I'm taking care of the house while I get my degree."

"So what is that, your undergraduate degree?" Touya fished for some information to pin down Yuki's age, or rather, their age difference. Yukito gave Touya a long, serious look, and for a flash Touya saw that "inner" Yuki.

Yukito said, "I'm older than I look, maybe."

Since Touya felt like he could breath again, although his lungs ached, he decided to tackle the topic directly. "So, I'm twenty six next month. Am I too old for you?"

"Twenty six isn't old, Toya," Yukito said.

"That depends on what year your ID has on it," Touya answered. "I wouldn't be OK with someone my age dating my sister."

Yukito smiled, more to himself it seemed than for Touya. His studied the sidewalk ahead. A slight, unconscious gesture of his head tossed the longer locks around his face back. "When I was seventeen," he said, words measured with each step he took, "I got involved with an older man. I got in trouble for not being honest with him about my age. It's funny. I don't think age should matter."

"It matters from the other side of the age thing," Touya replied. "Maybe it shouldn't." He thought for a while about what Yukito had said. "So, you've... you have experience that I don't," he finished awkwardly.

"You mean, a lover?" Yukito asked.

Touya managed, "Yeah," and almost a nod.

Yukito didn't say anything for a long while. They reached the top of the hill, then turned off the main street and down a smaller avenue. Their loop had put them back in the vicinity of Touya's house; he recognized the streets as being part of his immediate neighborhood.

"My house is on the next block. You should come with me," Yukito suggested. Behind his glasses, his wide eyes took on a teasing gleam. "You can find out what it's like inside." He turned around on the sidewalk and walked backwards. "I feel like running. Are you up for it, Toya?"

"Yeah. Let's go," Touya said. As soon as Yukito turned and started an easy stride, Touya put energy into his own pace and used the advantage of his longer legs to keep in step. The return to running didn't hurt as much as the exercise had earlier.

Yukito pointed to a particular house when they were in sight. Without slowing or saying anything more, he took his direction through the gate and right up to the front door. Touya slowed once he was on the property. He gave the lead to Yukito. Yukito unlocked the front door and invited Touya in, then closed the door behind him.

If Touya had been thinking about it, he might have paid more attention to the odd, uninhabited feel of Yukito's house. Instead, he followed through on the direction of his thoughts and caught Yukito as Yukito turned around.

He stepped into Yukito and pressed him up against the door. Yukito put his arms around Touya's neck and shifted his hips to push their bodies together from hip down.

"I..." Touya started. "You..." He gave up trying to articulate. Yukito was already lifting his mouth up to latch onto Touya's. Touya met him in progress. He smelled his sweat and Yukito's milder scent mingling. "Maybe I should have a shower," he mumbled when he caught his breath.

"I like that idea." Yukito took him by the hand, wiggled out of their clinch, and pulled Touya deeper into the house. They both kicked off their shoes as they went, managing to leave both pairs of sneakers in the front entry, however scattered. He led him to a bathroom and ushered him into the tiled room.

Yukito leaned on the door frame. "I'll get you a towel."

"Are you going to join me?" Touya asked. His bravado surprised him.

"Not yet. Don't be long. I'll be right back." With a brighter flash of an anticipatory smile, he disappeared into the hall. Just as Touya finished getting naked, Yukito showed up with a basket and a towel. He still wore the bottom half of his track suit, but he had peeled away the jacket to reveal a light blue, sleeveless cotton tank beneath, revealing a surprising contour of lean arm and shoulder muscule. He gave Touya a long, slow, appreciative look from head to toe. "I was going to put your clothes to wash, but I think I'll watch you instead," he said.

Touya couldn't hide how he responded to that suggestion. Instead, he turned on the water, found the bar of soap, and started scrubbing his chest and arms. Self-consciousness about his body warred with the arousal he felt from Yukito's lascivious assessment. The look of patient lust on Yukito's face could have been comical, but it made Touya want him all the more.

When Touya finished washing, Yukito continued to watch him while he toweled off. Then Yukito turned and began to lead the way down the hall. Touya wrapped the towel around his hips with reflexive modesty, but when he reached what was unmistakenly a bedroom, Yukito tugged it off Touya's hips.

"Come sit down over here," Yukito invited, and Touya sat down on the ready futon.

Yukito kneeled down between Touya's legs. He looked up at Touya and then, almost like an afterthought, he took off his glasses and set them to the side. Touya reached out and put his hand on Yukito's soft, ash pale hair. He wondered what to call the color, which was like the wintery bark of trees whose name Touya couldn't recall.

Yukito picked up Touya's other hand and brought Touya's beaten knuckles to his lips. He kissed the damage that Touya had done to himself against the boxing bag the previous morning. Then Yukito unfolded Touya's fingers and put his mouth around the tips, as a preview of what was to come.

"If you want to pull my hair," Yukito said, "I know there's not much to grab, but I like that."

Touya didn't know what to say to that, but he didn't have time to think before he _couldn't_ think. His cock already stood out like a pole near Yukito's face, and it only took a small turn of Yuki's head for him to nudge the tip upward with his tongue, then wrap his mouth around the flushed, rigid end. He let go of Touya's hand so that he could grip Touya's cock, stroking while he slid his wet mouth further over the length.

Touya closed his eyes. He dug his hand deeply into Yukito's hair and closed his fist. Together, he and Yukito moaned.

The pleasure was pure selfishness. He gave into it. He couldn't have stopped Yukito if he even considered for a moment doing so. He twined the fingers of both his hands into Yukito's short hair, but he restrained from pushing Yukito's head down or hurrying his upward and downward rhythm. When it became difficult not to, he shifted his position. Lying back on the futon, he put his hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and tried to think of calming things that would make him last longer before orgasm. Having his hands under his head didn't help with that. It served to make him more strongly aware of the real sensation of being sucked off.

He was so close. "Um, Yuki," he warned.

"Mmm?" Yukito hummed without stopping, though he slowed his even strokes slightly.

The vibration was too much, and Touya lost hold. He groaned, partially out of release, partially out of shame for his selfishness, and covered his face with his forearm. Yukito made it impossible to do anything but let go. He made low noises of pleasure, as if the taste of Touya was by far the most delicious thing in existence, that ended with a throaty chuckle and a kiss on Touya's inner thigh.

Yukito rose up and lay down beside Touya. "Was that good?" he asked.

Still breathing hard, Touya answered, "Fuck. Yeah." That didn't sound grateful enough for what had just happened to him, so Touya tried again. "You play dirty," he said.

Yukito laughed, a light, breathy, delighted sound. "You don't know how much." He lay a hand on Touya's chest, on his ribcage, just below his left nipple. "Yet," he added in a soft afterthought. "Maybe I'll show you."

Touya could not stop his slip into drowsiness. With as little sleep as he had had the night before, he wouldn't be able to put off the post-orgasmic need to nap. Before he did, he rolled toward Yuki to kiss him.

His mouth was almost on Yukito's when Yukito reminded him, "To-ya..." Touya didn't clue in until their mouths met and he tasted the unexpected flavor. The other thing Touya didn't expect was that Yuki would push him down and keep him from pulling away from the kiss, forcing Touya to taste himself mixed with Yukito's saliva and the slightest hint of residual soap. Yukito licked Touya's lip before he slowly sat up, releasing Touya.

Touya asked, "Do you like being the one in control?" Yukito was tidy, orderly. Touya could believe that he like rules.

"Usually I'm on the bottom." Yukito had a way of answering the question that Touya was really asking. "But if you want me to, I can switch." Yukito sat up, breaking contact. He stood up from the futon and strolled out of the room, casual and comfortable in the moment.

Touya didn't realize that he had drowsed off entirely until he woke up when Yukito came back into the room. He could feel the passage of time. Yukito's appearance showed evidence of a shower, in addition to the fresh clothes he wore. His hair was dry and brushed.

Yukito set a folded stack beside Touya as he sat down. The stack was Touya's clothes, washed and dried, including his socks, wallet, and keys. Touya pulled his clothes on.

"I have to get to class later," Yukito said. "There's a good cafe next to the campus. Do you want to go with me?"

"Sure. I could do that," Touya replied with a yawn. He was rewarded with Yukito's sunny smile.

"My grandparents left their bicycles in the garage. I think my grandpa's is tall enough for you."

 

* * *

 

Clow set Yue up in an upper story apartment with a view of distant water. It was small, but the view at moonrise would have made up for the size, if the place didn't already feel luxurious to Yue. Kero got a loft studio. The brothers were close enough to easily visit each other. Technically, Clow's organization owned both properties, but since both Yue and Kero paid their rent out of their earnings, they didn't feel any loss of independence. Their old flop went to a girlfriend of Kero's and her kids. Rain and Storm weren't Kero's, but Earthy would let Kero and his brother stay with her temporarily if things went oval shaped with their new situation.

Yue's place was the smallest, and certainly far smaller than Clow's mansion or any of the spaces he kept around for his use. Still, both Clow and Kero seemed to end up at Yue's place often. A few weeks into his residence, Clow arrived one evening when Kero had come over with a pizza. Yue and Kero were playing War when Clow's key turned in the door lock. Kero put down his half-eaten slice of Hawaiian. His surprise at Clow letting himself in was obvious to all.

"Hey, boss," he said as he stood up.

Yue put a final playing card on the stack of War. He crossed the room and stood next to Clow in a way that he knew would make it clear to Kero why Clow would enter as if he owned everything in the place. He caught his brother's eye with a steady gaze.

Kero's eyes flashed with gold in amber. He rolled them, crossing his thick arms at the same time. "Sheesh, Bunny," he sighed. He uncrossed his arms and rested them on his hips.

Relaxed, Clow strolled into the room and planted himself on the plush couch. Yue went to the efficiency kitchen to pour from a crystal decanter for Clow. After a shared look with Clow and tacit permission, Yue poured a second glass. He carried both glasses and handed them off to Kero and Clow. Yue remained standing. If not for Kero's company, he would have been on his knees.

"Nice," Kero commented at the taste of the sweet rum. His posture relaxed, although he did not sit down.

"How do you like your ink, Kerberos?" Clow asked.

Kero grinned at the sound of his new name. "It's sick," he said in praise of the new tattoo. "I was just showing Bunny earlier the shading Shadow filled in this morning. My wings are going to look like 3D when they're done. Does everyone in the company get art this good?"

"Tattoos are not required," Clow answered, "but it's something of a tradition to get feathers. I encourage personal decoration. It links us as a family."

"Anyway, I appreciate it," Kero said. He waved a big hand toward Yue. "Bunny shouldn't even have his, but his white grandpops makes him look older than he is." He took a swig of his rum and looked at Clow sidelong over the glass's rim.

Yue cast Kero a look like daggers.

Clow carefully set his glass down on the coffee table. "Is that so?"  He set his hands on his knees. "I wondered about your familial connection."

"We're three years apart, different moms," Kero said. "Right, Bunny?"

"Yes," Yue answered. "Kero is older by three years." He nearly ground his teeth together.

"Interesting," Clow commented. Interest wasn't the quality of the tone in his voice.

Yue crossed to shut the lid on the remains of the pizza. He handed the box to Kero. "I'll see you in the morning," he said to his brother.

Kero polished off his drink. "That said," he pronounced as he collected his jacket off a chair and carried the pizza box to the door, "when my brother wants something, he's serious about it." He looked at Yue. "You keep a little too much to yourself when you should say something," he said to Yue.

Not until Kero left could Yue face Clow. "You're angry," he ventured.

"I," Clow said, "am livid."

"Age shouldn't--" Yue started.

"Do not contradict me," Clow cut him off. His motion swift and smooth, he rose to his feet, took Yue by both thin wrists in one hand, and dragged him to face the wall. He set each of Yue's hands on the flat of the decorative fireplace mantle.

Yue did not turn to look when Clow walked into the apartment's bedroom. He could hear Clow opening the closets. Yue knew the sound of the specific closet's door, the one in which a collection of floggers, whips, and canes was growing. Clow came back with the sound of buckles.

"This is not for your pleasure," he said in a hard voice as he buckled wide leather cuffs to each of Yue's wrists. "This is not a reward." He passed a long, steel chain across Yue's back and clipped the chain ends to the attached rings. The slack settled heavily against the small of Yue's back. He kicked Yue's feet apart.

He lifted Yue's shirt. His fingers probed the long cuts that were healing into scar lines. He let the shirt fall and brought his hands around Yue's hips to undo the button and zipper of Yue's pants. The light material, a silk twill, easily slipped off Yue's lean hips. Clow stepped between the legs and pushed the pants down to Yue's ankles.

At the touch of Clow's hand at his knee, Yue first bent back one leg, then the other, for Clow to buckle cuffs, already joined by a connecting chain, at his ankles. The chain was just long enough to support Yue's legs apart at the distance set by Clow. Clow kicked the pants away when Yue stepped out of them.

The chains were not strained, but they would restrict his movement if he tried to fight. If Clow wanted a fight, he would tell him.

Clow took hold of the loose wrist chain and twisted the slack up in his grip. The only clear warning that Yue had of Clow's chosen punishment for him was the distinctive rushing sound the cane made as it cut through the air. Yue heard it a fraction of a second before the sting lit across his thighs like fire. He cried out. Clow had hit him fast and hard.

"Remain silent," Clow ordered. There was no seduction in his voice, no gloating of his power or taunt of erotic intentions.

The bite of the thin, fiberglass cain came down on the back of Yue's thighs in steady succession, each time with the same abrupt snap, punctuation of Clow's unspoken judgement. As Julian, Yue had been beaten with fists, whipped with a cheap leather belt or twisted appliance cord, but never caned with such focused, sadistic wrath. He clenched his jaw as the pain mounted, but could not hold back the bursts of anguished breath that tore out of him like sobs.

Finally Clow stopped. He threw the cane across the room and it clattered on the hardwood floor. He released the chain he had been holding. Yue brought his forehead down onto his hands and wept without tears. He heard Clow stomp across the floor to retrieve the cane, then a tight snapping sound as Clow broke the rod in half. He dropped the pieces on the ground, returned to Yue, and dragged him by the chains into Yue's bedroom, where he threw him onto Yue's bed. Yue curled up, shivering in reaction to Clow's rage.

"Do you know why I did that?" Clow asked. Each word had edges that cut.

"Because I kept something from you," Yue answered.

"No," Clow said. "Because I was angry and did not control myself."  He stood at the foot of the bed looking at Yue. He began to undress. "Now you know the touch of my anger," he said.

"You bastard," Yue answered. "You won't do it twice," he vowed.

"Now you know what I am," Clow said. He climbed onto the bed. As he angled between Yue's legs, the ankle chain pressed against his chest. Yue's knees bent until Clow was up against him. Yue squeezed his eyes shut at the hot pain in his thighs. Clow rolled Yue over. The leg chain went over Clow's head, and Yue lay face down on the spacious bed.

First Clow dabbed ointment from the stocked bedside drawer onto the lines of pain left from the caning. Then he pushed Yue's shirt up and gave caring attention to the emerging pattern of wings on Yue's back. Eventually, he traded lotion for lubricant and satisfied himself in his lover.

~

 

 

 

  
  
  


 


	13. Erase

“So we go in, late on Friday,” Kerberos told Yue, “with a Li and and Tomoyo Daidouji. The girl is filming the whole time like we’re the eight o’clock news. I’m right behind Sakura, and she was nervous in the car, but once we get there she’s all business. Polite, though. She gives her name and asks to speak to the person in charge.” He paced around Yukito’s living room, laughing as he remembered the encounter with the street gang. “One of the toughs steps up to fight, and Sakura says, “What! I don’t know any martial arts!’ and that Syaoran kid steps up. Bam, the fight’s done in thirty seconds.”

Kerberos continued the story. “The leader of the crew there, she’s the kind that likes to flex her power, and she starts challenging Sakura. ‘Who’s asking?’ and that kind of thing. There’s a tug of war for a few minutes, and then the lady from the corner store shows up, and I guess the punk figured out that she wasn’t going to win.”

Yue was curious. “Did they reveal something important to Sakura?” he asked Kerberos. “Did they know you’re from Clow?”

“Ah, she doesn’t know anything big. That gang is small fry, remember? All she could tell Sakura is that they were go-betweens.” Kero finally settled down on the tatami covered floor. “You should get some modern furniture in here,” he commented. He stuck his legs under the cloth draping from the table. “Warm. Better.”

Since his brother sat, Yue took a relaxed position himself, kneeling by the kotatsu table. “Yet she must realize now that the Kinomoto business is not antiques and replicas,” he said.

“I don’t know if she gets it, exactly,” Kerberos replied. “She’s really trusting. It’s like she can’t imagine anyone doing anything intentionally criminal. She’s convinced the gang to help Mastumoto with fixing up the neighborhood instead of messing with the store. Don’t look at me like that. That’s Sakura! That’s what she does!”

“She thinks the best of people,” Yue mused. “What did you find out about Li?”

Kerberos leaned back. “The kid is crazy about her. He follows her lead and backs her up. I was surprised when he showed up to stand by Sakura last Friday. You know, Clow didn’t say anything about him.”

“No,” Yue agreed, “he didn’t.”

“You think it’s gonna be a problem?” Kerberos asked.

Yue contemplated instead of answering. Sakura and Syaoran’s alliance wasn’t the only deviation from Clow’s expectations. Yue hadn’t stopped himself from involving himself with Touya. In addition to daily exercise, Yukito had convinced Touya to sign up again for academic classes. Over the last few days, they had been spending all of their time together. Yet because Yue had to stay hidden behind the guise of Yukito, except for frequent sessions of heavy petting, they weren’t together for sexual satisfaction. Even if a dark room hid Yue’s healing bruises, the dark wouldn’t hide the texture of his scars.

“Hey, Bunny?”

The question had a tone to it that made Yue apprehensive of what would follow. “What is it, Kerberos?” Yue asked.

“Does the big brother tell you what he and Sakura talk about?”

“No. Not really,” Yue answered.

“You know, they made an agreement,” Kerberos said. “Sakura’s been telling him all about her adventures. Everything she’s been doing. I think it’s reciprocal.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, they have a full disclosure policy, she says. I wonder what that’s like.” He got up off the floor and moved to sit directly next to Yue. “You and me should try it out.” He looked at Yue.

Yue turned his head toward Kerberos, but he kept his eyes averted. “We’re talking now,” he said.

“What does Clow think about you and Touya?” Kerberos asked.

“Yukito and Touya,” Yue corrected.

“So what does that mean?” Kerberos asked. “Are you doing what you’re doing just to stay close to Sakura, like Clow wanted? What’s going on? I mean, no details,” he added.

Yue sat back. He leaned his arms across his bent knees. “I don’t tell you everything because there are things you won’t like to know,” Yue said, “even without details.”

“I don’t know about that,” Kerberos said. “Try me.”

Yue thought about his bruises, which over the last week had turned from purples to greens. “I’ve never even told you… how much Clow means to me,” he said.

“Well, I have eyes,” Kerberos answered. “After this many years, you still don’t do PDA, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see that you love each other. You’re with other people sometimes, so I figured you have an open relationship.”

“No,” Yue admitted. With that single word out, he felt he couldn’t dissemble. “Clow likes me to escort important guests.” Kerberos looked as though he would interrupt. Yue didn’t let him. He raised his voice for emphasis. “I like it. I belong to Clow body and soul. Did you know he makes me eat? He trained me to eat so that I would put on weight. I can look at myself without disgust because of how Clow sees me. Because I am his. He gives me permission to feel pleasure and be alive.”

Kerberos looked sad. “Why can’t you give that permission to yourself?” he asked with concern. “I’m worried about you. You don’t tell me stuff you should.”

“If you judged me, I couldn’t take it,” Yue said.

“Judgment is your job, not mine,” Kerberos joked. “Seriously, Yue. The only time I’m going to turn my back to you is when we’re back to back in a fight, OK? You’re my brother. You’re always going to be my brother no matter how you reinvent yourself. If you need someone to tell you to… to enjoy life then how about me? You have my permission. How’s that?” He noticed Yue’s face turn paler. “Did I just say something weird?”

Yue understood what Kerberos meant, but he steered the conversation away to avoid clarifying the difference. His hand strayed up to the chain at his neck. With the texture of the links against his fingertips, he said, “I’m cheating on Clow with Touya.”

“You… haven’t told Clow?” Kerberos asked.

“Clow wanted me in a relationship with Sakura,” Yue revealed. “He expected me to make it happen.”

Kerberos reacted with disgust. “Aw, hell!” he responded. “That is… that’s...”

“I tried, but I... but Yukito…” Yue started to explain.

“Clow doesn’t get to decide that for Sakura,” Kerberos retorted. Agitated, he hopped to his feet and started pacing again, like a zoo lion focused on the spectators outside his enclosure. “You don’t get to decide that for Sakura, either, trying to go along with it. She’s a person, not a game.” He emitted a strangled noise of frustration. “You’re a person, too, Yue, not game piece! Maybe you get off on being handed out like a… a…”

“Like a whore?” Yue asked.

Kerberos rounded on him. “I will never call you a whore,” he said. “That’s a shitty word for a working girl, too.” He crouched to be eye to eye with Yue again. “I don’t have to like what you do. You’re your own person. But this is where I draw the line. Sakura makes her own decisions. She needs to know what’s going on so she can make decisions that are good for her.”

“Wait. What?” Yue asked.

“I’m going to tell her what’s going on,” Kerberos vowed. “Let’s make this full disclosure a thing for all of us. If she wants to take over for Clow, great, I’ll support her a hundred percent. If she wants something else, Clow can give his power over to the Li family or whoever.”

“Kero, you can’t do that.” Yue stared at his brother’s stubborn, righteous expression. When Kerberos set his mind on an idea, he couldn’t be easily convinced to reject it. In that way, he and Kerberos were alike.

“Watch me.” He stood up to leave. “Why don’t you come with me? We can leave the part about you and Sakura out.”

Yue grabbed Kerberos by his arm and held him back. “Think about what you’re saying. Don’t cross Clow like that.”

“Listen to yourself.” Kerberos laughed without humor. “That brings up a good point, though. I think I’ll talk to Clow, first. I have to check in, anyway.” He eyed Yue. “I’ll let you tell him about Touya yourself.”

Yue followed Kerberos to the door. He tried to say something more, to raise an objection or find some words to move Kerberos off his course of action. He couldn’t think of a reason. Instead, he watched Kerberos pull on his jacket and leave without either of them saying anything more.

Yue ran his hands through his hair, the haircut still feeling strange to him, as if he inhabited the body of a stranger. Feeling light headed, he sat down on the step down of the floor to the entryway. He leaned his head forward against his knees. His pulse fluttered like a moth against a light bulb.

He needed to calm down. He needed to… breath. It would be settled, he told himself, once he confessed to Clow and took his punishment. He could take the punishment. Clow might even let him keep Touya. He would have to confess to Touya. He would have to… tell Touya…

Wiping his eyes, still trying to steady his breathing, Yue used the wall to help himself get to his feet. He stumbled toward his room, found the doorway and looked for his phone. Eventually he remembered that it was in the pocket of Yukito’s jacket. He found the jacket and pulled the fluffy bulk of it on over Yukito’s ugly sweater because he felt cold, and because excavating the pockets was easier when it was on. He leaned against a wall support and held the phone in both hands. His hands were shaking.

He saw his reflection in the glass surface. His wispy bangs hid his eyes in shadows. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.

What would Yukito do? He wouldn’t force it. He would just call -- no, text Touya to have him come over, and then if there was an opportunity to broach the subject he could say something. He felt relaxed around Touya. Touya was easy to talk to. Didn’t they talk about anything that came to mind, all the time?

He tapped out and sent a short message: _i know its late but can i come over?_

Yue exhaled a shuddering breath. With the back of one hand, he wiped his eyes again. He wasn’t wearing his contact lenses. He would have to put them back in.

His vision blurred. His eyes stung, and he couldn’t bring himself to go the dozen steps to the bathroom where he kept his contacts and cleaning solution. He put his glasses on, thinking that if Touya commented on the difference, admitting his real eye color would be an easy way to get the conversation started.

Since he was already wearing a jacket, he started toward the front door. He started to sit down to put on his shoes, but balance slipped away. His vision darkened except for bright spots that swirled by. He almost caught himself on the wall, but his arm suddenly didn’t have the strength to reach it.

He blacked out. When consciousness returned, he didn’t think he had been out long. He didn’t want to sit up or move, so he lay as he had fallen, slowly becoming aware that someone was knocking on the front door. He saw the doorknob tested and turned. The door opened. Touya peered in. He was starting to call a hello when he saw Yukito on the floor.

Yukito tried to sit up, with mixed success. Touya swooped down to him and helped Yukito sit up by leaning him against Touya’s chest. Yukito tried to put his arms around Touya. Instead, his hand slid down Touya’s back and lay where it dropped.

“Yuki!” Touya raised his hand up and cradled Yukito’s head.

“I’m sorry, Toya.” He put his hand on the floor and pushed himself more upright. “I fainted, I guess.”

Touya didn’t let Yukito out of his embrace. “When you didn’t show up, I came over here. What happened? Are you sick?”

“I should have eaten something, maybe,” Yukito considered. “I’m sorry for making you worry.” He looked up into Touya’s face. Touya looked deeply into his eyes. Yukito reached up to take off his glasses. He intended to explain why his eyes weren’t hazel. Instead, he found himself kissing Touya, and Touya kissing him back.

Touya broke the kiss and said, “OK, loverboy, I’m taking you to bed.”

“Toya,” Yukito purred.

“Not like that right now, and you know it.” He lifted Yukito to a standing position as he stood up, himself. “When did you last eat?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t remember,” Yukito answered. “At the diner this morning?”

“Yuki, that was yesterday.” Touya guided Yukito down the hall. He kept Yukito’s arm over his shoulder and his arm around Yukito’s waist.

“Right. I must have had a light lunch today.”

Touya eased Yukito down onto the futon. He sat down beside him. Yukito turned so that he could rest his head against Touya’s thigh. Touya put his hand on Yukito’s head and stroked his hair.

“I should get you some water,” Touya said. He turned his hand against Yukito’s forehead to check his temperature. “You’re not feverish. I should make you something to eat.” He brushed Yukito’s bangs aside with a light touch. “What’s going on, Yuki?” he asked in a soft voice.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Yukito said. He tried to pull Touya down beside him.

Touya extricated himself. “I’m going to bring you some food,” he said. He got up and searched in the dresser until he found pajamas, which he then tossed to Yukito. “You’re not going anywhere, so get these on. You’ll be more comfortable. I’ll be back in a minute.” He left the room to head to the kitchen.

Yukito sat up. He pulled off the quilted jacket and set it aside. His sweater followed, though since he wore a loose polo shirt underneath, he wasn’t undressed. He could hear Touya in the kitchen going through cabinets and opening the doors of the refrigerator. Yukito unbuttoned his pants and slid them off. Long bruises striped his thighs. They looked worse than they felt; they were at that stage of healing. By Clow’s timeline, Yue had no more than another week until he gave his judgment of Sakura. Yukito took off his shirt. He didn’t reach for his pajamas right away. He didn’t have to find the words to tell Touya anything. He could show him. He could let him see.

At the sound of Touya’s footsteps approaching, he quickly put on the pajama top and wriggled into the pants. He was hastily buttoning the shirt on when Touya walked in, now barefoot, with a mug and a plate. He buttoned up over chain and pendant.

Touya set the plate down on the floor. The food was leftovers from snacks for Kerberos. “We’re going grocery shopping tomorrow,” he said. He handed the mug of water over. Because he was watching, Yukito ate the leftover cinnamon cookies and salty chips, washing them down with the contents of the mug.

“I don’t feel good about leaving you by yourself,” Touya said. “What do you think about me staying here with you for the night? To sleep,” he added.

As an answer, Yukito slid over to make space. Touya turned off the overhead light. A faint light came through the covered window, but the house was otherwise in darkness.

“I locked up the front door,” Touya said as he snuggled in against Yukito.

“Are you going to sleep in your clothes?” Yukito asked. He rolled over so that he could spoon inside Touya’s embrace. Touya pulled the covers up over their shoulders.

“No,” Touya said into Yukito’s ear. He kissed the back of Yukito’s head. After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” Yue said.

Touya’s embrace tightened around him. “OK.”

❧

****  
  
  


 

****  



	14. Fight!

Ruby Moon shimmied her way across the polished lobby floor, directly to the elevators. While she waited for the gleaming brass doors to open, three of the building’s security guards glided toward her. She slid a hot pink silk wallet out of her sequined bustier and flashed them a view of the ugly, official badge inside. They backed away. The elevator doors opened, and Agent Ruby Moon started on her way up to the penthouse office of Clow Reed.

Whoever was in charge downstairs must have radioed up to the well-dressed toughs in the reception area, because they let Ruby Moon pass without a display of her credentials again. Instead, she flashed a flirtatious smile at their stony faces. One of them took two steps to get ahead of her and knock at the closed door. She pushed past him and opened it before an answer to the knock.

Clow Reed appeared to have anticipated her arrival. He stood -- no, posed -- at one of the large windows, at ease, gazing outward at the view. In a midnight blue suit that easily cost more than the monthly rent of Ruby Moon’s apartment, he looked every bit the successful entrepreneur. She knew what he really was and yet his poise and confidence still gave her butterflies. “Is this visit necessary?” he intoned.

“You can’t blame us for being eager to check in on a new pet,” she said. She crossed the expensive carpet until she was close enough to invade his personal space, secretly punishing him for his sexy aura. She knew he liked to call the shots. From another intimate pocket, she pulled out a slim cellular phone. It began to ring. “Your master is calling. Better answer.” She offered the phone to Clow. “Woof, woof.”

“Escrow hasn’t closed on our agreement yet,” Clow answered. With a dangerous smile, he took the phone and touched a button. “Speak.” Clow listened to Director Hiiragizawa on the other end of the line. Ruby Moon didn’t have to know what Eriol was saying. She was content to be the unwelcome messenger. She watched Clow’s face for the tiny flickers of reaction that made his thin-lipped smile falter. She loved to see criminals squirm. It gave her life purpose.

“That is an acceleration of our agreed timeline,” Clow said. “No. Two weeks, or you will have nothing.” His eyes focused on Ruby staring at him.

She stepped further into his personal space and leaned up against him, walking her long fingernails along the shoulder seam of Clow Reed’s coat. Instead of ignoring her, as she expected, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close. The phone was still at his ear. Now, his shark eyes warmed with a sparkle to them. He made a “Hmm,” sound into the phone, but at least part of his attention was on Ruby Moon. His hand, for certainty, was on her skirt where it stretched tightly over her ass.

Two could play, Ruby Moon thought. She pressed her chest against him so that her modest cleavage gained depth. She breathed close to his neck, her brightly painted lips close enough to endanger his pristine shirt collar. Her hand slithered down his shirt and tried to wedge between their bodies on a path toward Clow’s crotch.

“Enough,” Clow said into the phone. He killed the call with a slide of his thumb. His other hand caught Ruby Moon’s questing one. He folded her fingers around the phone, then directed her hand to tuck the phone back into the strap on her thigh.

A commotion at the office doorway caught Clow’s attention, but Ruby Moon didn’t ruin her opportunity by turning to look. She went up on her toes and planted a cotton candy kiss at the corner of his mouth, slipping the tip of her tongue in while she was inspired.

He looked at her in horror. He turned a satisfying shade of fuschia. She peeled out of his frozen embrace, turned toward the door, began walking out, then changed her mind at the sight of the musclebound mook standing at the doorway looking like he’d swallowed a large, wiggly bug.

Ruby Moon strolled across the room as if she was interested in the framed wall art. The mook made throat noises. She could feel the eyes on her, and she made sure her walk had a lot of booty swing in it. She turned slowly on her high heels and leaned against the wall. She crossed her ankles and waited to see what Clow would do.

“Who’s this?” the mook finally choked out.

Clow wore an imperfect mask of composure. “No one of importance. Sit down, Kerberos.” Clow walked around to take a seat behind his desk. “Close the door first, if you would.”

“Are you sure?” Kerberos asked. When Clow interlaced his fingers and waited without saying more, Kerberos shut the door and took the chair in front of the desk. He looked over his shoulder at Ruby Moon one more time. “I think we should have this talk in privacy.”

She wanted to laugh at his expression of alarm, but she satisfied herself with a close-lipped smile instead. There was very little Clow Reed could talk about with his enforcer that she didn’t already know, but of course, “The Beast” didn’t know that.

“We’re fine,” Clow said.

Kerberos appeared reluctant to accept that assurance. “I’ve gotta talk to you about the new driver. The candidate, I mean,” he said, obviously vague to obscure Ruby Moon’s understanding. “Some other issues have, uh, come up that I wonder if you’re aware…” He glanced backward at Ruby Moon again.

Ruby Moon sauntered over. She sat on the corner of the desk, crossed her legs, and acted included in the conversation. Typically, a flash of her sleek thighs would garner her viewer’s appreciation. Even Clow Reed would be ruffled by the sight.  Kerberos, instead, expressed nothing but irritation at her proximity.

“This is bs,” he growled loudly at Clow, hands slamming on the edge of the desk as he shot to his feet. “We have to talk about Yue, Clow! As far as I’m concerned, this is a family matter! Between us, and not for someone I’ve never seen to overhear!”

Ruby Moon couldn’t resist releasing a small laugh. “I got what I came for,” she cooed as she pushed off her desk seat. Being errand girl for Eriol had been a nice break, but she had actual work to do, and she hadn’t built her reputation for closing cases on a foundation of just her great looks. “I do enjoy our time together, Master Reed,” she tossed over her shoulder as she made her way out. She tried to make eye contact with Clow before exiting.

His gaze was directed downward at the polished desktop in front of him, however. Kerberos still leaned forward toward Clow. Ruby Moon had to leave without being able to give either of them a final wink in parting. She pouted all the way to the elevator.

. . .

Kero didn’t turn toward the sound when the door clicked closed behind the woman. “WHO WAS THAT?” Kero demanded. “You’re the one who sent Yue away, and you can’t keep your hands off some chick’s ass in the meantime?”

Clow’s hands lay steady on the top of his desk. His eyes, which had been focused downward toward his hands, flickered up to meet Kero’s gaze. They glinted with authority that would normally have made Kero take his anger down a few notches. Kero wouldn’t release his grip on his reason for confrontation this time, however.

“Nevermind her, anyway,” he said, shaking his head as if shaking off the potential distraction. “You can’t just give Yue away like you gave Sakura the Corvette. You never asked Sakura what she wants. I get the plan of introducing her to the business side of things, but setting Yue up with her?” He threw his hands up in disbelief. “She’s already in love with someone, which you would know if you had bothered to ask first!”

Clow leaned back in his chair, but his facial expression still expressed a cold demeanor. “Who, Syaoran Li?”

“You already knew about the Li kid?” Kero nearly shouted.

“Of course, I knew. He’s an admirer of the Professor, as I understand it. Naturally, he would angle to connect with his daughter. But the Li family doesn’t accept Kinomoto as real competition. They would gain at Sakura’s expense.”

Kero was taken aback. “The Professor is Fujitaka Kinomoto?” he questioned. “Sakura’s father? You knew that?” He stepped away from the desk. “I didn’t know that.”

“Now you do,” said Clow. “Certainly, it changes nothing for you. I chose Sakura because of her unique connection to the Professor’s interests as well as those of the Amamiya Group. Perhaps you should have considered that my planning goes well beyond your understanding, Kerberos. We have done well with a relationship of trust. What happened to your trust, that you come in here demanding answers of me?”

Kero’s anger sparked anew. “You really don’t get it, do you? Trust goes both ways.”

“I trust you to do as you are instructed,” Clow replied.

“We've done well in our dealings, sure,” Kero said. “This has been a good gig. Up to now. Something has changed, Clow. You’ve crossed the line this time, and I can’t let that go.”

“That is too bad. I’m sorry to hear it,” Clow sighed.

Kero interrupted before he could continue. “You wanted me to go to Sakura. Give her my loyalty. I’ve done that. And for her I’m telling you: your intentions are out of bounds. She is her own person, and I’m going to back up her choices. If her choice is that kid, then I’m going to back her up.”

“I’m telling you,” Clow replied, the cold creeping into his voice, “her heart is not for a Li.”

“Oh, so what? You think I’m going to support you peddling out my brother to Sakura like you’ve been doing all these years to your ‘important guests’? You can take that idea and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine,” Kero growled out. He tensed when Clow stood up from his chair. If Clow wanted a physical confrontation, Kero felt ready to take the old man down. Right now, he was wishing for enough justification to punch Clow in the teeth.

“You’re in quite a mood,” Clow said in lead tones. “I’ve always appreciated your passion, but you are overstepping. You have a task that I expect you to perform. If you have nothing more to report in, other than this insubordination, then I suggest you go and cool your head.”

“In a mood!” Kero guffawed. “In a mood! You must miss having Yue to push around!”

“I never pushed him around!” Clow shouted, losing his cool demeanor. “We have a rare relationship. It is not simple to understand.” His face flushed with real anger. “No surprise that you would not grasp the substance of it!”

“Now you’re calling me stupid?” Kero couldn’t believe it. Clow must have lost his mind. “I’m done here. I’m done with you.” He turned his back on Clow and stalked toward the door.

He wouldn’t have heeded it, but he was still surprised that Clow didn’t call him back. Slamming the door behind him was less satisfying than he wanted. Kero’s pulse pounded in his ears, his anger emotional and irrational. He was in a dangerous mood that he knew he needed to diffuse before he took it out on someone who didn’t deserve it. He was half-tempted to turn around and take it out on Clow, who did deserve it.

Sulking in the otherwise empty elevator down, he wondered if he should have taken the fire stairs instead to work off some of his heat. The elevator ride was, at least, short. He strode out of the lobby and into the streets minutes after walking out of Clow’s office.

There were better ways to cool down, but he found himself headed toward a place where he could dance to loud music and drink cheap booze. The walk toward downtown took off some of the edge of his anger. Once he was in the district, he could think more clearly. The hour was still too early for anywhere but a dive bar. He wanted something cleaner and classier, so he headed to a club where they knew him. He could get in early, before official opening time, and help himself to the bar.

. . .

He had sobered up a bit by the time the last club he ended up in was closing down, but he wasn’t quite sober enough to remember how to get home. “Y’see,” he told the bartender, “I was his right hand man all these years, an’ he still doesn’t give me respect,” he said. “Well, not his right hand.” He laughed darkly. “I guess that’d be Yue, heh.”

“Aww,” the bartender answered, running her hand over his arm. “ _I_ appreciate you, honey.”

“I know ya do,” Kero said. “I know ya do… what was your name, sweetness?”

“Akane,” she answered. “But you can call me Sweetness if you like.”

“You’re the only one that listens to me, babe.” He yawned. “I gotta get outta here. I gotta find a bed.” He drained his shot glass and put his head down on his arms so he could close his eyes for just a minute.

A while later, the cute bartender finally peeled him off the barstool as she was heading home herself. “Come on, Kitten. You’re coming home with me,” she said.

. . .

 


	15. I'll Come to Thee By Moonlight p1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of a split chapter. I'm splitting out the relatively tame first part from the second part because the second part is an explicit BDSM flashback, so if you want to skip over it or, y'know, bookmark the link for later...
> 
> I intended (ahem) to post this update for Halloween! But I didn't. Yue and Clow in costume is a reference to "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes. And that's in 2 parts, too, so I guess it's fitting.

Yue felt the first seeds of worry about Kero sprout midday, when he still hadn’t heard anything regarding the outcome of Kero’s talk with Clow. Yue thought that Kero would have at least responded Yue’s text. By evening, when he had neither seen nor heard from Kero, and Touya said that he hadn’t seen Kero with Sakura, Yue’s worry became his principal preoccupation. Yukito left Touya at home with Sakura, and then Yue went looking for Kero.

He almost left to search for Kero while still dressed in Yukito’s style. He turned around and went back inside Yukito’s house to reassemble his wardrobe into something more appropriate for the places he would be going. He was able to make due with a non-descript combination of jeans, T-shirt, and hooded pullover.

He considered simply calling up Clow and asking if Clow knew where Kero was. Or he could go to see Clow, and ask him. But Kero was probably just holed up somewhere, distracted by a girl or some other pleasurable diversion. Maybe he had needed a break.

Yue took a route around Clow’s territory, checking in with Clow’s businesses. He was known, and treated with respect. He pretended not to see the double-takes at his appearance. A lighting tech at one of the clubs went so far as to compliment Yue on his haircut. Yue pretended not to have heard her, or notice her scramble off after her _faux pas_ to busy herself with preparations for the night’s show.

At a different club, the manager remembered Kero drinking at the bar the previous night. “Akane’s the bartender who worked closing,” the club manager told Yue over the sounds of an Celtic rock band onstage. “She’ll be in before we fill up for the main act tonight. Ten or fifteen minutes. Do you want me to call her?”

“I’ll wait,” Yue said. “Let me know when she’s here.”

The manager set Yue up at a VIP table. Yue declined the offered drink. He gave lukewarm attention to the warm-up band while they covered a song by The Pogues. Then they started a slower tune, a mournful intro that struck a chord of memory for Yue. The lead singer began a harsh rendition of an old song based on an even older ballad, and Yue closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat.

* * *

 

The night of the New Year’s Masquerade, Clow presented Yue with the unexpected. Yue went to kneel at his feet when Clow came through the door, as he always greeted his master. Clow threw a bundle of velvet and lace on top of Yue. It was a shirt, a coat, and some kind of old-timey leather pants. Clow also unburdened himself of a heavy, zippered suit bag, tossing that over the couch, and a pair of long boots with thick heels, which he dropped on the floor beside Yue.

“Get undressed,” Clow said as he unzipped the suit bag. He was wearing knee high boots of his own, shining with polish, and close-fitting pants with some kind of leg covers that set long rows of buttons running up each calf. His shirt had the kind of billowy sleeves Yue had only seen in historical movies about pirates, a better class of the versions seen in goth clubs.

Yue disengaged himself from the clothes Clow had thrown at him. He pulled his shirt off over his head while still kneeling and began unbuttoning his pants. From the suit bag, Clow pulled out a stiff white vest with a thousand more buttons; he put the vest on over his shirt. Over it all, he pulled on a bright red coat with decorative silver buttons.

“What is this?” Yue dared to ask. He sat on one hip to get his pants off. Clow offered him a hand. Yue took it and stood up. Clow pushed him to make him sit on the back of the sofa. He draped one of the coats from the suit bag over Yue’s bare shoulders. The coat was lined in cream silk, and made of velvet in a dark wine red that looked black where it folded.

“We’re going to a masquerade,” Clow said. His hands rested on Yue’s waist. “You’ll be the Highwayman, and I’ll be the Red Coat who,” Clow said, leveraging Yue backward as Clow brought his mouth to Yue’s throat, “shoots you down on the moonlit road.”

Yue bared his throat to Clow’s sensual bite. The lush velvet coat flowed off his shoulders and down to the sofa cushions. Yue gripped the sofa so that his body wouldn’t be taken by the same gravity. Clow bit and sucked on Yue’s neck, releasing the hold of teeth only enough to caress the captured flesh with the explorations of a wet tongue.

Yue wrapped his legs around Clow. They held him from falling over while he moved his hand under Clow’s coat and onto his back.

Clow lifted his head, releasing the bruised flesh with a last lick. He brushed his wet lips over Yue’s lips. Yue sighed as his mouth chased Clow’s lips for a real kiss.

Clow’s fingers rubbed down the ridges of Yue’s spine. They played along his back, feeling the contours made by Yue’s ribs, floating over the healed scars and healing scabs of Yue’s wings. He broke the kiss of their mouths, but pressed slow kisses across Yue’s face. He pulled Yue upright. He kissed his cheek. He kissed his temple and returned to kiss between Yue’s slender eyebrows, then once on each of Yue’s closed eyes.

“Turn around,” he said, without any force in his command.

Yue brought his legs down, set his feet on the floor, and stood. Still close enough to be enclosed in Clow’s arms, he put his back to Clow. Clow’s hands started at Yue’s shoulders. They trailed down Yue’s back, palms and fingers in contact with Yue’s skin, running over skin until Clow let his hands stop on the firm curves of Yue’s butt.

Clow leaned forward with a kiss for the nape of Yue’s neck, nuzzling Yue’s loose hair aside. “I can feel your ribs, still. Are you eating?”

“Yes,” Yue answered. “Everything on my list.”

Clow slid his arms around Yue’s waist, pulling Yue against his chest. “Good,” he murmured into Yue’s ear. Yue shivered.

For a while longer, Clow held him close. Clow’s cheek rested against Yue’s hair. He nibbled on Yue’s earlobe and said, “It pleases me to dress you up in pretty things. Pick up the costume I brought you.”

He had Yue put the shirt on, first, and button the the lower half. It made sense when Yue stepped into the pants. They were a soft leather, as fine as glove leather, and fit like a glove. He had to tuck the shirt tails in before tugging them on completely and doing up the front panels of buttons. The breeches went over knee-high thin socks, and the tall boots went on thigh-high. Black boots, pale brown breeches, a vest in dusk blue satin, and an ivory shirt with gold threads in the lace at his cuffs and the lacey cluster at his throat made up his ensemble. Clow pulled on white leather gloves and gave Yue a pair of black gloves. They both finished with three-cornered hats.

Yue looked himself over. The riding boots had heels that raised his height by an inch or so, but so did Clow’s. The hats completed the feeling of being in costume. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be, Clow,” he questioned.

Clow’s smile had been one of satisfaction while he looked Yue over, but at Yue’s words he showed mild dismay. “‘The Highwayman’? You didn’t read that in school?”

Yue shook his head. He doubted that his school would have taught it, even if he had stayed past tenth grade. “I don’t know what that is.”

“A bandit,” Clow said, “a rogue who prowled the woodland roads, with a sword and a pair of pistols. A romantic figure from a tragic ballad.” He smiled at Yue again, indulgently. “You, my beautiful love, are that thief of hearts.”

Yue felt warm arousal at Clow’s praise. “Were the highwayman and the Red Coat in love?” he asked.

“Aren’t we?” Clow asked, his voice warm and his eyes teasing.

“I love you,” Yue said.

“I love you,” Clow answered. With his gloved hand, he cradled Yue’s head, the other hand pressing the small of Yue’s back.

* * *

 

Yue could almost still feel the touch of Clow’s fingers on his lips. He was startled out of his memory by the presence of the club manager at his elbow. “Sir, I’m sorry,” the man said, “Akane called in sick for her shift. Would you like to use my office to speak to her over the phone?”

“Give me her address,” Yue said, stepping away from the table. The music and its accompanying memory agitated him, not that any of his turmoil showed in his severe demeanor.

“I’ll get it,” the manager said.

“She will be home when I get there,” Yue stated to quell any idea the club manager might have of warning his employee.

“Of course, sir,” the man answered.

Yue impatiently scribbled his phone number on a cocktail napkin. “Text it to this number,” he said. He couldn’t stand another minute of band, even though they had finished the one song and moved on to a Black 47 cover. He walked out of the club. By the time he had flagged a taxi, his phone vibrated in his pocket with the address of the bartender.

. . .


	16. I'll Come to Thee By Moonlight p2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback: an after party, Fiery, vows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Current timeline picks up again in chapter 17.

 

* * *

 

New Year’s was one of Yue’s first times out in a large social gathering with Clow. Their flashy costumes drew attention, and Yue couldn’t be simply a satellite on Clow’s tether. He stayed close to Clow, and he watched his master for signs indicating how to behave. Clow put him forward. Yue took on a confident manner, shades of Julian but without the undercurrent of desperation, the need to close a deal. Clow approved when Yue flirted with the other costumed guests, so Yue flirted: a light touch on someone’s glittered coiffeur, leaning into a caress on his shoulder, a secretive smile and attentive stance, the right notes of emotion in his voice.

He did it for Clow, for the languid gaze of pride as Clow watched him. The other eyes that roved over Yue, over his leather pants that fit too closely to wrinkle, seeking to glimpse beneath the sway of his velvet coat, those covetous eyes would have meant nothing to Yue without the reward of Clow’s approval.

They danced. It was a theme party, with music to match, and when the quartet played the kind of music for a sweeping, graceful step, Clow took Yue in his arms and together, they made an elegant pair moving along the dance floor. Yue didn’t need to know how to waltz. He would have been able to fumble through the basics -- some sort of three-count pattern -- without Clow leading, yet with Clow guiding the flow of their movements together, Yue could move naturally with the current.

Their connection had no hesitation. It was like their dynamic as lovers, as master and slave, and Yue started to feel light-headed. As he looked into Clow’s eyes, he began to think about what Clow would do to him when they were alone.

Clow had different plans, as Yue found out when the party ran down shortly after the midnight ringing in of the new year. Clow and Yue relocated from the ballroom to a party of a more intimate size and nature, crossing the wide lawn to an outbuilding of the mansion. The garden house, the kind of space used for wedding receptions and summer gatherings, had been filled with candles in votives and glowing paper lanterns. In spite of the glass roof above the wooden beams, the room was warm with bodies and candlelight. Music in a hypnotic melodies played from a sound system at an unintrusive level, filling out the murmur of voices into a kind of white noise, creating privacy in the large, high-ceiling space. Mixed into the noise, an ecstatic cry or a grunt rose above the current like a spout of sound. When his eyes adjusted to the candlelight, Yue could see the tangles of entwined partygoers scattered around on the room’s appropriate furniture.

At a central space in the garden house, an expensive looking horse saddle in tooled black leather rested on a heavy stand. The beams crossing above, in both directions, draped long swags of shiny cloth from beam to floor, serving to highlight that sturdy eye bolts that marked a series along each beam. Though they only held up the long silks, the anchor points appeared to be of the strength to hold up the weight of bodies. While Yue watched, a small, athletic aerialist twisted himself up in one of the silk swags, climbing up and then inverting himself in a sensual ballet. He held himself inverted with one bent leg, his arms stretching outward to drag the tail of the cloth in slow circles. He slid down the silk, flipped right-side-up, and let himself down to the floor.

Clow was watching the young man. When the aerialist reconnected feet to floor, Clow caught his eye. Clow touched Yue on the shoulder and led him up to meet the aerialist.

Clow leaned in and whispered something in the young man’s ear. The aerialist turned to Yue, his eyes alight with reflected flames.

“Hold out your hands,” he said to Yue, and his voice had a crackle of proud heat.

Yue looked to Clow for guidance. “Do as Fiery says,” Clow instructed. When Yue brought up his arms, holding his hands out to the aerialist, Clow reached around Yue and pulled off the velvet coat. He tossed it aside, successfully throwing it over the horse saddle in its stand a distance away. Then, while Fiery wound silk around and through Yue’s wrists, Clow, still reaching around as he stood behind Yue, unbuttoned the top half of Yue’s lacey shirt.

Yue closed his eyes for a moment. He relaxed. The room smelled of melting candle wax and of sex. Clow, at his back, was warm and solid. He could smell Clow’s expensive cologne.

Fiery pulled on the slack of the silk that hung down from the beam. Yue’s arm went up, up over his head. Fiery went up on one foot and used some of his weight and leverage to pull Yue up straighter. He continued until Yue had no choice but to raise himself up on his toes. His breath gasped out. Fiery had wound the silk around his wrists and tied them, but he had also passed the silk across Yue’s hands. Yue grasped the cloth as he was pulled to the tips of his toes, and his grasp relieved the strain on his shoulders. Fiery’s build was more muscular than Yue’s, so in spite of his smaller size, he made a heavier counterbalance to Yue. The small man grinned as he forced Yue off the ground by superior leverage. He pulled his part of the aerial silks over to a vertical beam and secured the cloth to an anchor point there.

Yue pulled on the silks that held him firmly off the ground. The toes of his boots only grazed the tone tiled floor. He wouldn’t be able to hold himself up for long. Already, his arms shook, a combination of muscle strain, distress, and anticipation.

Clow walked around and stood in front of Yue. He made a seat for Yue with his arms under Yue’s leather clad butt. He raised Yue up, taking Yue’s weight against his chest, taking the strain of Yue’s grip on the hanging swag. Through his round-framed glasses, he gave Yue a smouldering look that promised unimaginable things. “Do you trust me, my love?” he asked in a murmur meant only for Yue to hear. An audience had begun to gather around their scene.

Yue answered without hesitation. “Yes. Completely,” he said.

Clow’s arms slid aside until only his hands secured Yue. Clow’s fingers pressed into the thin leather, and Yue reacted to the sensation of his lover’s grip on his ass. His cock throbbed in the confines of the tight leather breeches.

Clow kissed him along the jawline. He slowly released Yue to gravity again. Fiery stood watching them together for a minute, but then moved out of Yue’s line of vision. Clow crossed the clear space to pick up a wooden block, about the size of a cinderblock, and return to place it under Yue’s dangling feet. Yue could relax his shoulders with his feet on a solid surface again.

Yue was aware of the eyes watching him. He wasn’t comfortable with it, but then, Clow liked to play with him in a pattern of discomfort and rescue. It was as if Clow constantly dreamed up new ways to put Yue under duress. Clow exploited aspects of Yue’s character of which even Yue was unaware, at least until his fears and uncertainties became exposed by Clow’s mischievous sadism.

Clow continued kissing Yue, and Clow’s hands roved freely over Yue’s body. His hands slithered under the unbuttoned edge of Yue’s shirt. Yue focused on Clow’s hands and mouth to avoid thinking about being watched as he became more and more aroused. He let out a low moan against Clow’s mouth as Clow kneaded the bulge of Yue’s crotch.

Gradually Clow moved to kissing Yue behind his ear, then down toward his collar, then nipping at Yue under the open shirt collar. He began layering new bruises over Yue’s already discolored neck.

Being with someone who knew him more intimately than he knew himself, who could see him more clearly, was intoxicating. Clow fucked Yue emotionally, psychologically. Because Clow could do that, Yue felt a sense of inevitability with Clow that he had never known to the same degree with anyone else. Clow would do what Clow would do, and Yue didn’t have to struggle against uncertainties, as Yue had had to do all his life.

His certainty came at a price, Yue remembered when he heard the sound of a whip crack, somewhere in the space behind him. He shuddered, already on edge from the intense sensation, the mixed pain and lightning arousal caused by Clow’s biting and sucking. Fiery came into his view. Fiery walked a wide circle around Yue and Clow. He carried a short whip. When he stood clearly in Yue’s line of sight, he caught Yue’s eye and he grinned. He moved the whip up in a practiced arc and popped it, and once again, the whip’s tip cracked loudly. Yue stiffened at the sound, the leather whip sounding too similar to a leather belt. Fiery continued his circuit until he against stood out of Yue’s range of vision, somewhere behind Yue.

Clow laughed, low and deep. He raised his face up to look into Yue’s eyes. Clow knew what made Yue afraid.

“No,” Yue whispered a plea to Clow. He tried to wrap a leg around Clow to keep him close.

“Fiery doesn’t know our safeword,” Clow said. He ran his hands one more time over Yue’s back and backside. Then he stepped away, saying, “You will have to call it out so I can hear you.” He went to lean against the riding saddle stand. “If you need to use it,” he added in a level voice, not loudly, but Yue could see his mouth form the worlds, and he knew what Clow had said.

It was a point of pride for him that Yue would not use his safeword. On the edge of Yue’s tolerance, Clow would always ease off in time. That edge had been moving outward ever since their first night together, when Yue had bloodied Clow’s bedsheets with his cut and bleeding back, whispering and moaning that he could take the pain as Clow took his virginity.

At the next crack of Fiery’s whip, the bite of the whip’s thong stung across Yue’s ass. The leather, as thin and tight as a second skin, offered only the slightest of protection. He flinched away, but he was not in a position to escape.

The anticipation was the worst. He filtered out everyone else watching but Clow. Clow gave nothing away before the whip struck Yue again. He simply smiled and watched. Clow was not holding the whip himself, but he was nevertheless the one wielding it.

The whip taunted him with a pop that he could see in his peripheral vision, without stinging Yue’s ass first. Yue jumped at the sound. He looked across the space, trying to keep eye contact with Clow, but the whip bit; Yue closed his eyes shut and twisted away from the pain. He gripped the silk of his bindings, and when the whip did hit in too-fast succession, he couldn’t stop himself from pulling himself up, trying to climb away from the fierce sting.

Pulling himself up swung him forward, dangling, leaving him in greater peril, because Fiery was unlikely to spare Yue the lash in his predicament. He struggled to get his feet back onto the support block. He had to let himself hang a moment from his wrists; when he allowed the silk to slide out of his grip, his toes found enough purchase on the floor for him to step back up onto the block. He almost lost his footing again at the taunt of the whip cracking empty air beside him.

He forced his jaws to unclench. He opened his eyes again, found Clow, and reconnected with his gaze. Yue’s chest heaved.

Clow straightened up. He made a gesture to Fiery and crossed the floor to Yue. His arm went around Yue’s waist, and again he held Yue against his chest. “Would you like to come down?” he asked quietly.

Unable to give the words more than airy breath, he mumbled at Clow, “I can take it.”

“I know you can,” Clow answered, only for Yue to hear. Fiery followed through on Clow’s gestured command. He set down his whip and put his attention to Yue’s release.

Yue moaned when the silks went slack and allowed his arms to drop. It was all he could do to patiently remain still while Fiery slowly removed the bindings from Yue’s wrists and forearms. It helped that Clow stroked Yue’s hair and back while Yue’s hands were being slowly set free. Fiery took his time, pulling the silk cloth loose in a taunting manner, grinning all the while.

When he was done, Fiery made a playful bow to Clow, winked at Yue, and sauntered off. His exit reminded Yue again of being watched. Since the whip had been put away, fewer observers gave Yue their attention, yet he could still feel the gazes from the candlelight shadows. They roamed over his sore, stinging, throbbing body. His blood felt molten in his veins. A mist of perspiration rose along his lower back, under the closely fitted vest and shirt.

Clow’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Strip,” he said, loudly enough to create a slight echo. He went back to lean against the saddle stand and observe.

Yue began by unbuttoning the tight leather pants. His breath sighed out audibly. The boots had to go, or he would never get the pants off, but getting out of the boots would be nearly impossible without sitting, and the anticipation of sitting on his stinging backside left him in a quandary. Even striding across the floor toward Clow felt like whip fire across Yue’s ass again. He worked on divesting of his shirt.

He wasn’t an exhibitionist for his own pleasure, only for his lover’s. The air across his lean, naked torso nevertheless tightened his nipples. If Clow liked to mistreat him this way, Yue considered, then he would give his lover a body to show off to voyeurs. He was strong, but not defined. Well-muscled arms and shoulders would hold him up better in suspension. Clow required Yue to eat, and Yue was already filling out to a degree that made him uncomfortable with looking at himself. He could accept it as muscle, as long as only defined when he was undressed.

Shirtless, he leaned himself against Clow’s taller body, his hips forward against Clow’s hips with suggestion of his desire. The glint in Clow’s eyes revealed that he was ready as Yue to consummate their union. Yue understood from the way the evening had been going that Clow was in a mood for a hard, rough fuck.

His scar-traced wings stood out in plain view, a pattern made over the months he and Clow had been together, and he was proud to show them off. They were proof that he belonged to Clow, that Clow wanted him and kept him.

And used him. Yue loved the way Clow used him. Pleasure surged in Yue, as he realized that the watchers were witnesses of his use to Clow. Yue didn’t hesitate any further. He didn’t bother with his high boots. Thumbs in his waistline, he pushed down on the leather pants until the waist met up with the tops of the boots, exposing his erection and baring his abused ass.

In a second, Clow had Yue bent over the saddle, ass in the air and legs apart. Clow pulled the ribbon roughly from Yue’s hair, making Yue’s hair loose and messy as it spilled forward over his shoulders. Clow pressed Yue down with a hand against the back of Yue’s neck, fingers tangled with Yue’s hair, and Yue pushed back as if he didn’t want what was coming.

Clow liked a little bit of fight. Yue gave it to him, but just a little, because his desire throbbed and he didn’t want to wait long to feel Clow inside him. Clow pulled him off the saddle by the hair and down onto his knees at Clow’s feet. Yue worked at the buttons of Clow’s costume pants until they opened loosely. He put his lips over Clow’s cock and took the length of it deeply into his mouth and throat. He sucked to make Clow harder. Yue had learned how to make Clow impatient.

In private, Clow might have let Yue suck him off, but this was an exhibition, with Yue on display. Kneeling on the ground, Yue spotted the discreet sex supplies tucked at the base of the saddle stand. He grabbed a bottle and poured lubricant into the cup of his palm, then used both hands to slather Clow’s hard cock with the clear, slick lube. He stood up and rubbed the remaining lube against himself; he bent over the saddle again in obvious invitation.

Clow was inside him without delay, but not with the hard thrusts Yue expected and wanted. Instead, Clow moved in and out of Yue’s entrance with deliberate slowness. Yue moaned with pleasure and frustration. To please Clow, he moaned loudly, a wanton sound of need. He was rewarded with harder, quicker thrusts from Clow. Yue’s butt cheeks still stung from the kiss of the whip, and the lingering pain added to the exquisite pleasure of the sex.

With his own hard cock being rhythmically squeezed between his body and the oiled leather saddle, in combination with friction and percussion of being fucked, Yue almost could not hold out until Clow climaxed first. The sensation of hot fluid filling him pushed him to the edge of exploding against the hard, smooth leather. His training to wait, however, held until Clow gave him permission. As soon as Clow growled in his ear, Yue shuddered in orgasm, his come splattering across the floor and on his boots, his breath bursting from his lungs with the sound of his completion. His cry, like the fluttering of wild birds flushed out of hiding, reverberated against the glass roof and briefly filled the garden house.

Clow wrapped him in his velvet coat. Yue pulled his pants back on, retrieved his shirt and vest, and cleaned up the area and himself before retiring into Clow’s arms, snuggled on a bench vacated for them to sit. Clow had recovered his red coat as well, but he left it draped over the assorted pillows padding their corner instead of wearing the stiff garment.

“I have something for you,” Clow said. He brought his lips down to Yue’s ear and nibbled lightly on Yue’s earlobe, causing Yue to arch his back in response.

“I’m still…” Yue started to excuse himself for his sensitivity to the mild touch.

“Vulnerable,” Clow finished, for him, in a gentle voice.

It wasn’t what Yue had intended to say, but he didn’t argue. Being held and cared for while he came down from the psychological high of submission was part of their sex, as much or more a part of it as orgasm. He was vulnerable, and he was safe.

“Or I should say,” Clow continued, “something to offer you.”

Curiosity piqued, Yue turned his head to watch Clow pull something from a pocket in the red coat. The hinged box made him sit up straighter. Clow had occasionally gifted him with jewelry, but never in a manner more formal than folded in a handkerchief.

Arms encircling Yue, Clow flipped the box open. Yue looked down at the contents. An impressed exhalation puffed out between his open lips. Light reflected in sharp rays across the dome of a deep blue pendant. The star sapphire was almost too large to be worn, and the white metal cable links of the chain were proportionately sized to match the giant blue cabochon.

“Will you accept this as your collar?” Clow asked.

“My--” Yue stopped, all at once out of words. He lifted a hand and touched the necklace. His hand shook.

Clow took the platinum chain in his hands and let the box fall. “Do you want to be mine, always?” he asked.

“Yes. Forever,” Yue answered.

The sapphire pressed its mass into the notch of his collarbone, and the cable chain was cold and heavy against his bare neck, making Yue shiver with the chill as well as pleasure when Clow latched the collar on. Clow locked the clasp with the key he wore at his neck. Obviously custom made, Yue knew his collar had measurable value as great as the symbolic value it had to his and Clow’s relationship.

“Thank you,” Yue said.

“Yue, I love you,” Clow answered. "You belong to me."

* * *

 

  



	17. Float to Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akane-chan, The Float, Flower, Snow, The Dream, The Wood, The Change, The Little

 

 

Kero’s mouth tasted like a wasteland. He was still dressed, all except for his boots and jacket, so nothing much had gone on with the bartender. Now that he was sober, Kero was glad they had only snored together on the same pillow. She wasn’t a little kid; she was somewhere in her early twenties. Kero was still in his twenties for a few more months, but he had what felt like centuries of life experience over the girl. It would have been weird if anything serious had happened.

His phone was dead – no charge left – Kero discovered when he got up to use Akane’s toilet. She was sound asleep, breathing in long, slow breaths. She didn’t even twitch when he rolled out of bed.

In the bathroom, he found the empty foil packages of a street drug, a designer narcotic generally thought to have come out of Hong Kong. It produced drowsy euphoria and was as addictive as it was unpredictable. Sometime the effects lasted for days, and a user who kept taking pills could forget to eat, unintentionally starving to death.

He picked up one of the foil packs and went back into the all-purpose room of the studio. Her bedroom was part of the room sectioned off with sheer curtain panels. A beat up couch and an old television set took up the other part of the room. The kitchen was a sink and a microwave, a refrigerator-freezer, and a tiled countertop.

He sat down on Akane’s side of the bed and checked her pulse and breathing. Asleep, she looked like a little girl, curled up under her pink floral duvet. Brown, straight  hair tied up in two short ponytails added to her innocent appearance. She smiled in her sleep, far away in a manufactured dreamland.

He got up again and looked for some way to let Sakura know he wouldn’t see her today. He couldn’t leave. He needed to stay with Akane for a little while and see what he could do for her.

Akane didn’t seem to have a computer, but she did have a smart phone that she  had plugged into a charger next to her bed. Kero couldn’t remember any phone numbers in his contacts except Clow’s, which was no help at the moment. In a moment of inspiration, Kero used the phone’s browser to look up the Kinomoto business web address, There, he didn’t find Sakura’s phone number, but he did find a website contact form. He wrote,

TO SAKURA KINOMOTO

I AM OK. SORRY TO MISS OUR MEETING TODAY. FAMILY EMERGENCY.

KERO

He submitted the form. He wouldn’t be able to get an answer back, but he figured that whoever checked the web form emails would pass his message along.

Kero poured a glass of water, took it to the sleeping young woman, and lightly smacked her on the cheek to wake her up. Her eyelids opened and she squinted at him with a vague look.

“How long have you been using Float?”Kero asked her.

Akane reached for the foil pack in his hand. “Is there more?” she asked, her focus blurred everywhere except for the promise in his hand.

“No more,” Kero said. “No more for you, Sweet Thing. We’ve gotta clean you up.”

Akane made a long, low groan of protest. Instead of saying anything, she tugged at Kero’s hand. She bit her lower lip and looked at him through half-lidded eyes. “Come into bed,” she enticed. “It’s too early. I don’t even start working for hours.”

“Babe, I’m serious. Do you know what this stuff does to you?”

“It makes me feel like I’m floating to heaven,” Akane mumbled. “You know what else gets me flyin’?” She started to slide backwards, to pull Kero into bed with her. “You were too drunk last night,” she said. “You fell asleep.”

Kero climbed on top of the blankets. “Come on, drink your water,” he complained. He tucked the blankets around her and started to gather her up. “Aw, no whining. Let’s watch some TV for a while, alright?” He needed to wake her up all the way, get her to drink water, and eat something. “You got any food here?”

She shrugged, not caring about anything. He put her on the old sofa, blankets and all. Then he checked out the refrigerator. To his surprise, there was a reasonable amount of food in the kitchen, leftovers in the refrigerator and frozen meals in the freezer. He unwrapped a frozen burrito, put it on a plate, and punched a couple minutes into the microwave.

Akane hauled herself over and stopped the timer by pushing the door button. Still smiling at everything and nothing, she accused, “Don’t you read instructions, Kitty-cat?” She fussed with the food before putting it back to heat up.

“Who you callin’ Kitty-cat?” Kero grumped without animosity. He noticed the pallor in her face.

By the time the microwave chimed, Akane’s eyes had rolled up and her knees had given up on keeping her standing. Kero caught her before her faint took her to the floor. He carried her back over to the sofa and elevated her legs with a roll of blankets, and when her eyes fluttered with her return to consciousness, he put her phone into her hand.

“You’re calling in sick,” he said. “When you feel like you can sit up, I want you to get dressed.” As soon as she could leave her apartment, he planned to take her to get some medical attention. After that, they would go out of town. He had some friends, Flower and Snow, who lived in remote area off the grid, hosting spiritual retreats at a place they called Dream House; they hold could be counted on take her in for as long as Kero asked.

She put her phone down and picked up the TV remote control instead.  Since she remained lying down, he didn’t object.

She refused the food. Halfway through dressing, she stopped doing anything but watching TV, giggling at a reality show that wasn’t noticeably funny to Kero. He ate the burrito because he was hungry. Then he brought her shoes, coat, and purse to her, made her finish dressing, and shepherded her out the door.

When Yue arrived at her door later that day, no one was home. Akane hadn’t remembered to call in sick until she was already waving goodbye to Tomoeda.

(

Sakura sat at her father’s desk in his office at the company, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. She picked up the receiver of the desk phone and dialed Tomoyo’s direct line. On days without morning classes, Tomoyo put in office hours at Daidouji Corp. Sakura smiled when Tomoyo answered with a neutral and polite greeting.

“Tomoyo, it’s me,” Sakura said.

Tomoyo’s voice and manner warmed instantly. “Sakura! Caller ID showed only  your company. Are you working?”

“I’m trying to do _something,_ ” Sakura explained, “but I need your help, I think.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” said Tomoyo.

Sakura remembered that Kero would be showing up at any moment. “H-oe! Don’t rush over!” She modulated her voice down. “There is something strange about this accounting that I can’t put my finger on. It all adds up, but...” How to explain eluded her. “I just have a feeling there’s something here I should be seeing.”

Tomoyo made a sound both sympathetic and contemplative. “Can you email some screenshots to me? I can talk about it with you tonight.”

“Thanks, Tomoyo,” Sakura sighed.

“Let me take you to dinner, and we can talk about it then,” Tomoyo said.

“You’re a great help,” Sakura reiterated.

“Anything, for my dear Sakura,” Tomoyo replied. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“See you then,” Sakura answered. She hung up and looked at the time. Nearly noon was not only late for Kero, but getting close to her appointment at Scheherazade Sand Company. She didn’t feel confident about going alone. Where was Kero?

As if in answer to her question, Ms. Little from the customer service department appeared at the window of the office door. Sakura got up to let her in. She opened the door and looked up, feeling short. “Hello?”

The exceptionally tall employee  handed over a sheet of paper. “I think this for you,” she explained the print out. “It seemed urgent, so I thought I should bring it to you if you were here.”

“Thank you,” Sakura said as she read the message from Kero. “You’ve been a big help.” She shut the door again when Little left. Then, coming up with a change of plan, she used her cell phone and dialed Syaoran. He would have to take Kero’s place with for a day; she hoped he could do it.

(

Her father had been giving an archeology lecture, open to the public, and Sakura had made a point of attending. Her father would be leaving again for another long trip, and she wanted to see him as much as possible. That was how she met Syaoran Li. He had seemed disproportionately shocked when he realized that she was Professor Kinomoto’s daughter.

She didn’t understand that she had been rapidly falling in love with him over their meetings that followed, nor even thought of those outings as dates, until he evoked a strong protective feeling toward him by telling her about his family back in Hong Kong. He told her everything, including how he couldn’t renounce his family because someday, as the Li heir, he would be able to reform the family, get the Li name out of the dishonorable activities that had become their way of business. However much he defied his mother’s demands, she would not disinherit him unless he challenged her outright, on home turf. None of his sisters had a business mind, and Yelan Li would never hand over her power to a son-in-law over her own son.

So he stayed in Japan, in name running their Japanese interests, but in actuality, biding his time until he could step in as head of the Li Clan.

She kept their relationship hidden from her father and brother for as long as she could, but Touya found out. Touya at that point was going through one of his worst episodes, his overprotectiveness of her taking on a paranoid aspect. The mutual animosity was instant. Since then, it was all Sakura could do to keep them apart, to prevent her brother from physically attacking Syaoran, who would retaliate in kind.

But things were in the process of changing, Sakura contemplated as she waited for Syaoran near King Penguin, keys in hand. All it had taken was for her and Touya to talk to each other, really talk, and start building a bridge of understanding. It was something they could easily have missed doing.

Touya wasn’t telling her everything; he said as much to her. There was something he wasn’t ready to talk about with her, yet. She wondered if Yukito knew what it was.

(

Yue hadn’t anticipated the simple obstacle of not finding the bartender at her home address. He leaned his back against the door for a minute after deciding that no one was inside to hear his knocking. The apartment building was a multi-story complex with concrete walkways on each level. Akane’s apartment was on the second level, easily accessed from an open stairway. She must be a trusting person, or someone who realized that the locked lobby of a security building didn’t create  protection equal to its promise.

He scanned the empty street and surrounding buildings. No one would see him, so he reverted to old skills and picked the apartment door open. It was easy. She hadn’t even  turned the deadbolt.

The past had an inescapable hold on him, he thought as he searched the small space. He was only looking backward, these recent days, as if he could see Clow, only Clow, and no future. As quickly as he had that thought, he thought of his dalliances with Touya.

He observed the rumbled bed, a single unwashed plate in the sink. Packets of a recreational drug in the bathroom, some of them  unopened. The toilet seat was up, and somehow, Yue didn’t think that a single woman, living alone, would leave it that way. The cabinet held all the basic medical supplies: band-aids, non-aspirin pain reliever, cough suppressant and anything else a mildly sick person might need.

She hadn’t gone out for cold meds. It was possible that she _was_ ill, and a friend or boyfriend had taken her somewhere. Yue didn’t find anything to tell him where Kero was, so he left as quietly as he had entered.

He ran his fingertips over his collar chain as he walked away  from Akane’s apartment. It was supposed to have been forever, his time with Clow; that was what the collar meant. That was what Clow intended – he believed it – on that New Year’s night when he locked it around Yue’s neck. Yue wore the collar, but the vow went both ways.

* * *


	18. Longing

Yue did the last thing he wanted to do: he called Clow. Finding Kero was something Yue should have been able to do without bothering their employer. Still, he told himself, he needed to check in, and Kero had been on his way to Clow when Yue last spoke with “The Beast”.

He told himself that he wasn’t giving in like a pain junkie. He wasn’t addicted to being hurt by Clow; what they had was something more fundamental to his being. More than that, it was a contract. A contract could not be dissolved without mutual agreement.

“My counterpart has been absent,” he said when he heard the line pick up.

“Absent in what way?” Clow asked. Instead of filling Yue with calm and warmth, Clow’s voice put Yue more on edge.

“I last heard from him yesterday. Today I can’t reach him.”

Yue spoke quietly into the phone as he walked. He remained aware of his surroundings, careful out of habit not to be overheard. Regardless of a few homeless encampments in the doorways along the arterial road, the neighborhood was active with resident activity. A young couple walked by, carrying groceries in reusable bags. A group of troublemakers loitered near a bus stop. Yue heard an old woman calling her cat in for mealtime.

“Hmm.” Clow’s voice, deep with confidence and age, belonged to another world entirely. “He left me in a temper last evening,” Clow revealed, “that he may still be steaming off. Proceed as you think best.”

“You’ll do something?” Yue asked. In the past, he would simply have trusted Clow to advise action if action needed to be taken. “Nevermind,” Yue added. It felt impertinent. He anticipated reprimand. None came.

Clow replied, “Goodnight, beloved,” a moment before Yue ended the call.

He turned homeward again – or not home, but to the simpler life of Yukito, who had a theater rehearsal to attend. The company from the museum event engineered lighting and sound for any kind of live production, and through them Touya had been roped into an improvisational acting group short a few members for local shows. There was always room during rehearsals for Yukito when he accompanied Touya.

He wanted to escape into being Yukito and push away the thoughts and memories that came with being Yue. Yukito wouldn’t even think about Kero. Foremost in Yukito’s mind was Touya, and Yukito hadn’t existed long before that focus to care much about anything else.

His fingertips ran along his neckchain again. He contemplated Touya in Clow’s sexually dominant role. Then Yue laughed, under his breath, dispelling the tightness in his chest. Yukito was something – someone -- different, for Touya, so their relationship was something different. It couldn’t be like Yue’s with Clow.

But how would it be, if Touya were introduced to Yue?

The street toughs in the bus stop shelter deferred to Yue when he approached. Yue realized he couldn’t go to Touya as he was. The clothes might pass, but not in combination with Yue’s mood.

The simple solution would be to reveal his true nature to Touya, and to Sakura. Kero had been suggesting as much. Telling Sakura of her candidacy now would be directly against Clow’s instructions. She wasn’t to know until the time of judgment came; it would be absolute, and final. He had time, still. Another week at least.

He walked past the bus stop, instead entering a thrift shop with pastel colors in the large display window. He walked out a few minutes later in an outfit that suited Yukito. A plastic shopping bag held his other clothes. He wore the polyester blend pants – with boxer shorts beneath -- polo shirt, and knitted acrylic sweater like a punishment for his rebellious thoughts against Clow. They were the worst clothes he had been able to find in the store. He smiled Yukito’s smile, not the grimace he felt at wanting to tear it all off even to his skin.

Yukito would have waited for the bus, but Yue found he couldn’t do it. He hailed a passing cab and took the ride to the rehearsal location.

ooo

Syaoran had an apartment in a residential complex owned by the Li family. Sakura didn’t want to part ways with Syaoran so soon, after getting his help with the sand importer, but since she had a dinner date with Tomoyo, she could only offer to drive him home. She took her time, for once keeping the Corvette under the posted speed limit as her route took her through a maze of narrow, residential streets.

A bell in a distant clock tower rang the hour as Sakura parked her Corvette into a guest spot near the lobby door. She turned off the engine and sat, too shy to look at Syaoran directly, reluctant to let him go. She had to let him go. He would invite her upstairs if she would say yes, and then she would want to stay forever. She peeked at him from the corner of her eye, waiting for him to turn and kiss her. Her hand moved from the gear shift to beside his thigh. Her fingers brushed an affectionate caress against his leg.

Syaoran, his face serious, kept his gaze on the glassed in entrance to his building. His hand captured her caressing fingers. His fingers wound through hers; he gave her hand a squeeze.

“Um, Syaoran,” Sakura started. She smiled to herself. Maybe she would initiate with a kiss on his neck, she thought. She began to move toward him.

“It’s Meiling,” he said, in a nearly inaudible voice. “Why?” Tense and alert, he opened the passenger door and started a step out. He broke hand contact with Sakura after another squeeze. “Meiling!” he called. He left the car and walked toward her.

The young woman seemed to have been anticipating his arrival. “Syaoran!” She was delighted to see him, and ran toward him regardless of her tight skirt and high heels. Sakura noted her impeccable appearance. The woman’s long, carefully pinned hair framed a pretty face. Her makeup was fashionably applied, in a dark palette that suited her complexion.

Syaoran took only a few steps from the car before Meiling reached him. “Syaoran!” she repeated. “Aren’t you surprised?”

“When did you get here?” Syaoran asked. His lukewarm response to her embrace soured Meiling’s expression.

She glanced at Sakura, then returned her attention to Syaoran. “You don’t seem happy to see me,” she said.

“I’m didn’t expect you to come,” he answered. “Mother sent you, didn’t she?”

“Can’t I visit my fiancé? I missed you.” Her wine red lips parted. She looked at Sakura again. “Who’s this?” she asked. She turned toward Sakura. “Who are you?” she asked directly.

Sakura got out of her car and walked around the front of it. “Hello,” she said.

“This is Sakura,” Syaoran said.

“Sakura Kinomoto,” Sakura said. “It’s nice to meet you finally, Meiling.”

A transformation came over Meiling. Her saucy manner vanished, replaced by an enthusiasm that seemed a little forced. She gave Sakura a hard, fast hug that left Sakura befuddled. “No wonder he wouldn’t send pictures of you,” Meiling squealed. “You’re so pretty! I could have gotten jealous!”

“Um,” Sakura said.

Meiling continued, “I’m so excited to meet you. Syaoran’s never had a real secondary partner before.” She squeezed Sakura’s hands. When she released them, she wrapped her arms around Syaoran and planted a happy kiss on his cheek.

Sakura’s heart fluttered like a falling petal. Syaoran didn’t treat her as secondary; until Meiling used the term of hierarchy, Sakura hadn’t thought of herself as lesser in Syaoran’s heart. She wondered, with sudden sadness, if she had misunderstood all along.

Syaoran gently extricated himself from Meiling’s embrace and asked, “Why are you here, Meiling?”

“You’re right. Aunt Yelan sent me, but I wanted to come,” Meiling said. “You were supposed to come back months ago.” To Sakura, she said, “Why don’t we all go out somewhere and get to know each other? Wouldn’t that be nice, Syaoran? We can talk over dinner?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Sakura said. She was surprised to feel a tightness in her chest, a feeling of tears welling up. She had known about Meiling, of course. Syaoran had been forthright about being engaged, bringing it up even before she realized they were falling in love. Honestly, it was because of all the other obstacles that she hadn’t given it much thought. “I can’t,” she repeated. “I’m going to dinner with a friend.”

Syaoran said, “You and me have some things to talk about first, Meiling.” He turned to Sakura, gathered her up in a hug, and touched his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry about this surprise,” he said. “I’ll call you later tonight. Are you OK?”

Sakura nodded. She still felt off balance, but it helped that Syaoran had noticed. Before she returned to the Corvette, she said, again, “It was nice to meet you, Meiling.”

“I hope we get a chance to do something together before... Well. Before too long!” She smiled brightly.

Sakura concentrated on putting the car in gear and driving. She drove with care off the property. Her only glance back at Syaoran and Meiling was after backing out of the spot, and then she gave them both a smile and a parting wave. Meiling was clutching Syaoran’s arm, but he waved back with his free one.

She drove straight home. She cried a little as she drove, not so much or so hard that she needed to pull over, but enough that once she got home she rushed into the guest bathroom to splash her puffy eyes and red nose with cold water. She took the dampened hand towel with her to continue daubing her face on the way to her room.

She didn’t notice Touya’s door was open and that he had left his desk. He caught her at her room doorway. She was startled by his seemingly sudden presence in front of her. “You scared me!”

He smirked at her squeak.  “Space cadet,” he commented. “Come back to earth. There’s something I need to show you.”

Sakura scowled. Her sadness vanished, replaced by embarrassed irritation. “I have a lot on my mind,” she said as she followed him back to his room, where his computer showed a series of photos.

Most of the images were of the street outside their house, slightly blurred photos probably taken from a distance, quickly. Some were of other locations, but Touya pointed out the link. “It’s different cars, but look. I’m sure it’s the same guy. And here and here, that’s the same car as the one watching the house, at the museum a few weeks ago, at the store, and at school.” He gave Sakura a meaningful look. “We’re under surveillance.”

“By who?” Sakura’s first reaction was concern that Touya’s paranoia was stirred up again. In light of her current concerns about the family business, however, she amended her query. “Who is it?” she asked. “Who would be watching us?”

Touya shook his head and shrugged, but his face remained serious. “Keep an eye out when you’re out, and get a photo if you can.” He tapped on one of the photos, indicating the man. “He’s dark skinned, tall and thin, usually in a suit, like a salary man.  I’ve seen him out of the car, reading a book, but he was gone before I could get closer.” Touya stood up and paced. “Don’t go anywhere alone if he’s around.”

“Promise you won’t, either,” Sakura insisted. “I mean it.”

Touya smirked again. “I’m always with Yuki when I leave the house,” he said, his smirk turning into a genuine – if small – smile.

“Well, I’m going to dinner with Tomoyo,” Sakura said, “so I won’t be alone, either.”

She took a final look at the photos on the computer screen. It could be coincidence, she thought. Or, Touya could be right. Touya could have been right all along.

Still thinking about Meiling and Syaoran, Sakura dressed for dinner in a gloomy mood. _It’s going to be alright_ , she told herself as she stepped into a pink summer dress. _Loving someone doesn’t mean you can’t love someone else, too,_ she thought. And later, as she buckled the ankle strap on her sandals, _Meiling seems like a nice person._

She sat down on her bed, her full skirt fluffed around her, and tried not to think about Meiling and Syaoran, until her phone alarm chimed to tell her that it was time to pick up Tomoyo .

ooo

Yukito popped up from behind the painted board scenery. He waved his spangled wand at Touya. “I’m here to fulfill your heartfelt wish.”

“A can of mackerel!” Touya, dressed in the rags of Cinderella, exclaimed.

Yukito adjusted the paper hat on his head. In theatrical tones, he said, “Cinderella, you are always so hungry that your dreams are full food. Your abusive stepmother only lets you have scraps and expired food she is throwing away. When you walk beside this river,  you look with longing even at an empty can of mackerel. Your regard transformed me.”

The director, Yoko, nodded and clapped. “Keep it. Let’s use that bit.” She made a note on her clipboard. “We’ll need to put out a collection for the food bank with the performance,” she called over to one of the crew. She walked toward Yukito and Touya. “It’s fresh. I like it,” she said to Yukito. “The fairy is a small part, but you could steal the show.” She seemed pleased. “Touya, your costume change is going to be smoke and explosion noises. The audience won’t see your dress until your big moment when you arrive at the ball.”

“Yoko, can we break? Someplace might still be open for take-out.”

She looked at her cell phone for the time. “As long as you’re back in thirty minutes.” She smiled at Touya. “Can you spare some time this week before rehearsals to visit a rental shop? We need to find a princess dress long enough to fit you.” Yoko, who played the prince, was small in stature, and she liked Touya for Cinderella because he towered over her.

“Can’t I go on my own?” Touya asked.

“Well, sure,” Yoko answered. Her expression didn’t completely hide her disappointment. “As long as you send pictures before you decide on one.”

Yukito asked, “As long as it’s really sparkly, it will do for Cinderella, won’t it? One that looks good under the lights?”

“I’ll even make sure it’s pink,” Touya said to appease Yoko. “I’ve got to beat an enchanted can of mackerel, right?”

Taking the conversation as concluded, Touya steered Yukito toward the exit. Touya said, “I guess you’re officially in the cast, now, too.”

“I guess so,” Yukito answered with a grin.

“Where did that come from, anyway?” Touya asked. His voice was pitched only  for Yukito.

Yukito shrugged. He was not going to think about how often Julian Star had relied on bumming food between dinner dates. Not consciously. The promotional silver-paper hat from the canned fish company had been just a funny prop, a silly tiara for the fairy godmother. What he had said had truly been an improvisation, unplanned and not thought through. “Where do you want to get take-out?” he asked.

“The restaurant on the top floor is good,” Touya said. “I worked there in high school.”

“In our costumes, Touya?” Yukito laughed.

“They won’t care if it’s take out,” Touya answered.

ooo

Sakura’s eyes widened. “Tomoyo... you’re wearing glasses!”

Tomoyo tapped her index finger to the side of the frame. “It’s a wearable, Sakura, with a built-in camera. More fashionable than the American ones, don’t you think?” She settled into her seat, putting her handbag at her feet before snapping her seat belt on.

As she always did, Sakura made a face at the reminder of Tomoyo’s filming. Still, her protest was no more than a short whimper. “They look cute on you,” she said to Tomoyo. She put the car into gear and pulled around the circle driveway. They were soon through the tall gate and out onto the roadway.

Tomoyo’s heart flipped at the compliment. “Now I know what you liked about Mr. Tsukishiro,” Tomoyo teased.

“Tomoyo!” Sakura blustered.

“How is that going, by the way?” Tomoyo asked. She kept her tone light, as if she didn’t care much one way or the other.

Sakura watched the rode for a while before answering. “Oh, he’s dating Touya,” she revealed.

“Sakura! Oh no,” Tomoyo commiserated.

Sakura shook her head. “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m starting to wonder if I’m really...” she stopped. She inhaled deeply. She didn’t finish what she had started to say.

Tomoyo didn’t prompt her to finish the thought. Something was on Sakura’s mind, Tomoyo could see. It was her way to give Sakura time, though, to observe and listen, not to push. She had already pushed a little more than usual in inviting Sakura to a date restaurant for dinner. It meant they could dress up, spend time in a pleasant setting, and enjoy each other’s company.

They rode with the roof down and heat on so they could thoroughly enjoy the moonlit spring night. Tomoyo didn’t pretend it was a romantic date. She loved Sakura and left it at that. She was happy to spend time with Sakura, no matter what they did together.

The restaurant, Water Flows, was a view location on the top floor of a mixed-use building. It had inauthentic seventeenth-century Chinese décor and trendy western fusion food. A soft pop band played on a small stage. Tiny lanterns softened the shadows at each table. No other Daidouji or Amamiya would ever be caught dead in such a place, which made it perfect. There was no chance at all of running into any of Tomoyo’s extended family.

The hostess led them through the shadows toward their reserved table. Tomoyo’s enhanced glasses had light-sensitive lenses, and she could apparently see better in the low light than Sakura, because Sakura reached out and took Tomoyo’s hand to prevent getting separated. “Can you see where we’re going?” Sakura asked.

“Here we are,” Tomoyo answered as they reached the table, set into an alcove.

The hostess left two skinny menus while Sakura and Tomoyo took their seats. “It’s so private,” Sakura noted.

“But we can see everyone else,” Tomoyo pointed out. She had chosen the table carefully. “See, even the front lobby.” A busser came by and filled their water glasses before discreetly disappearing again.

“We can talk here without being interrupted,” Sakura mused.

“Except by the food,” Tomoyo answered, which made Sakura smile and pick up a menu.

“I don’t know what to choose,” Sakura said. Suddenly, she sighed.

There was definitely something more on Sakura’s mind than business concerns. “What if we order randomly, and see what comes? It could be fun.” Tomoyo put her menu aside.

When they ordered and the waiter left them alone again, Sakura turned a serious face toward Tomoyo. “Tomoyo, could you turn off the camera, please?” she asked.

Tomoyo immediately slid the glasses from her face. “Of course. It’s off.” She folded them and put them into her handbag.

“You don’t mind?”

Tomoyo expressed a manufactured sigh of disappointment. “Well, I’ll miss out on filming your reaction to pork belly potstickers,” she said.

“We’ll take a selfie when those arrive,” Sakura said, “for both our reactions.” Her smile showed effort. “I don’t mind when we’re in the picture together.”

Tomoyo knew she should offer not to film Sakura anymore. She was too selfish to give it up, though, even knowing Sakura tolerated it for Tomoyo’s sake. Tomoyo didn’t want a different subject. Photography was her hobby, but photography of Sakura was her interest.

Sakura surprised her. “Maybe I can wear them? And film you?”

Tomoyo was caught off guard. “I’m not as photogenic as you,” she claimed.

Sakura grew speculative. “Let me see them,” she asked. She lay her open hand on the table.

Tomoyo took the camera glasses out of their case. She leaned in toward Sakura to show her how they worked. Sakura took them from Tomoyo’s hands and put the glasses on. She was still shoulder-to-shoulder when she turned them toward Tomoyo.

So close. In fantasies, Tomoyo would hold Sakura’s face in her hands and bring their lips together for a kiss. Instead, she arranged Sakura’s bangs so that they wouldn’t cover the lens. “There,” she said.

“I bet I look silly,” said Sakura.

“Not at all,” said Tomoyo. “The frames are too round for your face, but you make them cute.”

“If you found out something about me that you didn’t like, would you tell me?” Sakura asked.

Again, Tomoyo was thrown off by Sakura’s question. “What could you tell me that I wouldn’t like?” she asked. She reconsidered her response. “Sakura, I won’t ever judge you, no matter what. You can tell me anything.”

“But would you tell me that you didn’t like it?” Sakura asked again.

“If you wanted me to tell you, I would tell you,” Tomoyo decided.

“There’s something I want to tell Syaoran I don’t like,” Sakura said.

Tomoyo sat back in her chair but kept her posture open. She would listen.

“But, first I have to explain something you might think is weird,” she said.

“Okay,” Tomoyo encouraged.

“What do you think about... being in love with somebody when they are in love with somebody else?” She saw something in Tomoyo’s face that made her quickly amend, “Not a love triangle. Everyone knows. I mean, we all know.” She tried again. “I mean. Syaoran is important to me, and I’m important to Syaoran. And Meiling loves Syaoran, and Syaoran... Meiling is important to Syaoran, too.”

“Who’s Meiling?” Tomoyo asked carefully.

“They’re engaged,” Sakura said, “to be married. Since forever.”

“I think I need more information,” Tomoyo said. “When did you find out?”

Sakura rushed to explain, “No, no, I’ve known since before we started anything. I only met Meiling today, but we knew about each other and talked to each other on the phone. She lives in Hong Kong.”

“But if you knew?”

“I think it’s alright,” Sakura said quietly, embarrassed. “To be in a relationship with more than one person.”

Tomoyo felt like she was unable to do anything but blink at Sakura for several long minutes. In fact, if they had not been interrupted by the arrival of artfully decorated, tiny plates of food, she might have continued staring at Sakura in shock. Instead, they both turned their attention, and cameras, toward the food. Then Sakura handed the glasses back to Tomoyo to put away.

Tomoyo was glad for the small portions. The food had a strange taste in her mouth, and she didn’t know if it was the fusion cuisine or her roiling emotions. Finally, she asked it. She had to ask it.

“Are you in a relationship now with Meiling?”

Sakura nearly aspirated her bite of her spicy kale. Guzzling water, she vigorously shook her head.

“Do you mind if I ask... how does it work, if everyone is... straight?” Tomoyo had never imagined a conversation like this. She usually knew what was going on and could keep her composure.

“We’re not,” Sakura said in a small voice. She quickly drank more water. “Um, I don’t know, about me... but Syaoran isn’t. I’m not really sure how it works. Meiling called me ‘secondary’ today, which means she’s ‘primary,’ and I’m really confused about that.” Sakura sniffed. She dabbed a napkin to her eyes. “That’s really spicy,” she accused the kale dish.

Tomoyo got her softer handkerchief out of her purse and handed it to Sakura. “Is this what you thought I wouldn’t like?” she asked. When Sakura nodded wordlessly, Tomoyo tried to reassure her. “Sakura, I love everything about you. This, too. I don’t really know what to think yet, except that I will always support you no matter what. Do you believe me?”

Sakura nodded again.

Their waiter hesitated in line of sight. Tomoyo lifted her chin and made eye contact to bring him over. “Is there something good to follow a spicy dish?” she asked.

She ended up ordering a black sesame crème brulee dessert. Sakura had collected herself by the time the exchange was done.

“Thank you, Tomoyo,” she said.

“Of course, Sakura,” Tomoyo answered. “Do you think you can talk it over with Syaoran, maybe with Meiling, too?”

Sakura made a positive noise. “I guess I have to,” she said. “I just started talking to my brother, too, about things. It’s getting easier to say things. I wanted to tell you about me and Syaoran a long time ago, but it always seemed like the wrong time to bring it up. I’m sorry it took so long.” She folded Tomoyo’s handkerchief. “Thank you for always being a good listener.”

Tomoyo felt that she could have listened more closely. She should have noticed something, like when Sakura showed interest in Yukito Tsukishiro without being any less devoted to Syaoran Li. “It’s too bad that you aren’t dating Yukito,” she commented, “because then Syaoran would understand how you’re feeling about Meiling.”

“Mmh,” Sakura negated. “I’m too happy for my brother.”

“Speaking of which – is that him right now, Sakura?” She didn’t comment on Touya’s dress.

“Oh my goodness,” Sakura said when she saw him. Touya was at the bar with Yukito, and then they both went to wait in the lobby. She laughed, her first bright smile in an hour. “He’s in a play. Let’s go talk to them.”

They left their belongings at the table and made their way to Touya and Yukito, who didn’t realize they were being approached until the young women were nearly beside them. The men were distracted with each other.

“Touya,” Sakura said. “Yukito.”

“You’re having dinner here?” he asked Sakura. He gave Tomoyo a look of assessment. She had the impression that he was considering the romantic atmosphere odd for a pair of friends having dinner.

Yukito offered, “We’re getting take-out. Is the food good?”

“Um, yes?” Sakura answered.

“Didn’t you pay attention when you were eating it?” Touya asked. “Or did it all go down your monster gullet without being tasted?”

Sakura’s angry face made Tomoyo snicker, then feel bad for finding it so adorable. Yukito came to Sakura’s defense.

“Don’t be so mean, Touya.”

It earned Yukito a smoldering look from Touya. Tomoyo giggled again, because the look and he costume dress were a combination. “That patchwork dress,” she explained.

“Wait until you see him in Cinderella’s ball gown,” Yukito said. “We have to find one, though, first.”

“If you need a costume made, I can help with that,” Tomoyo offered.

Touya seemed pleased with the offer. “Really? Thank you.”

Sakura said, “If you want, I can drive you home. We’re finishing up.”

Touya gave Tomoyo another brief glance. “We’re going to Yuki’s after rehearsal.” He looked over at the bar, where a bag of take-out had appeared. “Looks like our food is ready. Don’t rush your dinner.” Yukito went to retrieve their order. “In fact, Sakura,” Touya said in a lower voice, “why don’t you stay over with Tomoyo? So you’re not at the house alone.”

“I’d be happy to have you stay over,” Tomoyo agreed.

“Sure,” Sakura said.

Touya and Yukito left with their food, and Sakura and Tomoyo returned to their table. “When is your father returning?” Tomoyo asked.

“I don’t know,” Sakura answered. “He wants to stay at the dig while the weather is good for them. Once the tropical rains start, they have to seal everything up for a season.” She grew thoughtful. “Though I’m wondering if that’s the reason,” she said. She sat down. “Ugh, I’m so confused about everything,” she complained.

“You’ll figure it out,” Tomoyo encouraged. She felt guilty even as she said it for the secrets she herself was keeping from Sakura. “No matter what, I’ll support you.”

ooo

 


End file.
